Temporal
by MarleyMarley
Summary: I was just a NORMAL human before I met this crazy Bio-terrorist in the park. Now, I'm one of them and you don't know how much I hate being on the run, but I got nothing else, I'm who they called "Temporal" but they're in for a surprise if they think I'll be that easy to kill.
1. Chapter 1

Bioterrorists. Humans who were born to do great feats and be of power. Another term for 'Conduits'. This was all the things I knew about them before I, myself, found out about me being one…

January 1, 2012. It was around noon of New Year when I felt a little 'tired' from staying inside. I was a natural introvert, spending much of my time away from people and if I was forced to socialize, it would only take me two to three minutes tops before I walk away and never look back. I decided a jog to the local park was in order. I put on my best clothes, a gray sweatshirt and some running pants and off I went.

Mum was already in the kitchen preparing the ingredients for our family dinner later that evening. She met me half-way through my walk towards the front door. "Honey, dear, if you have time could you go and buy some carrots and milk at the grocery?" she asked, a stack of paper money in one hand.

I nodded. "Sure" I say and took the papers from her hand. I look at the hallway mirror to make sure I was ragged-looking or had a terrible hair day from lounging around my bed for the first few hours of New Year's morning. My black hair was tussled all around, but it wasn't something a little combing with my finger couldn't fixed, my fair complexion seemed to have a bit darkened the last couple of months I spent on working at the local garden house. A pair of ocean blue eyes stared back at me as I finalized looking and criticizing over myself. "You look fine, Lee" I muttered to myself. I threw open the door and stepped out.

Our house sat a few blocks down from the lake and seven blocks from the park. I passed by the grocery store and decided I would buy the things mum wanted me to get later when I return from my jog. I haven't been outside since yesterday, I needed the fresh air and the lack of people outside had put me in a good mood. The Oakley Park was a spacious green field surrounded by the lake to the west and a forest to the north. It had a concrete path the served as the visitors' path around the park. I took the concrete one until there was a fork in it, the concrete continued to the left and a muddy, dusty one leading up to the forest was to the right. I took the right and headed deep into the forest enclosure.

I feel alive when I'm with nature. Being alone with it was even better. Here I was free from all the worries and judgmental eyes of society. Here, I was— A sound of breaking branches cuts me off from my own thought. I sounded far away but the rapid succession of the sound came louder and louder until it stopped a few feet behind me. I've met wolves and wild dogs during my other runs but this was rather different, I turn around slowly and see a man, rugged and scrapped with bruises all over his body. "Dude, what happened to you?!" I asked as I calmly walked towards him. His eyes were darting from left to right, he's shaking wildly, his head jerking from one direction to the next, trying to spot whatever that did damage to him.

"You—you got to help me—me, man" he says. His teeth chatters like he was cold. Or terrified. "th—they're after me, man!" he says jumping on me and shaking me by the shoulder.

"Hey!" I shout. "Stop it, I'll help you but you got to stop—shaking me" I say trying to break free from his hold. His grip loosens and I was able to jerk myself from him.

"Look, man. I'm sorry but you got to help me" he says.

"I will" I say. I turn in a circle trying to see if anyone or anything was coming towards us. Nothing. "I just want to know first what's after you"

"The D.U.P man, they're hunting us down" he says, his voice gaining more dread and fear with every second he spends talking to me. "Please, I need your help, man"

I move back, suddenly taken by the horror of what I just stumbled on. A Bioterrorist. This is why I don't go out. I curse myself for trying to help this guy, he's a monster; they all are. I try to move slowly, gaining space between us. He seems to notice and turns his attention from turning in circles to me. "Hey, I thought you were going to help me out!" he screams lunging towards me.

I turn and run. I don't want to be involved in anything with these types of people. The D.U.P needs to come and get him off of my tracks before anything else happens. The man lifts his hand and a root of a nearby tree juts out, tripping me. I fall to the muddy ground face first. i hear braches moving around me, creaking and snapping as the man willed them to. I turn and see I'm surrounded by sharp braches, the man stands a few feet from where I was on my ass. "You liar" he says coldly. The fear and anxiety before, gone. he twists his arms and the braches swerves and collides on each other forming one large chunk of a wooden spear aimed directly at me,

"Whoa, whoa, man. You wouldn't want to kill anyone now, would you" I say trying to stand up. The branch—spear—suddenly shoots out towards me. I close my eyes waiting for it to hit but it doesn't come. I open my eyes and see the end of it directly in front of my neck, a few centimeters from my skin. "You wouldn't want the D.U.P to do _horrible _things to you for killing an innocent bystander now, would you?"

He spits on the ground. "Fuck the D.U.P, I can't stand liars. They're worse than the D.U.P" he says. I feel the wood pushing against the skin of my neck, drawing blood. "You're worse than they are"

"Hey, I was going to get help" I said. I try to back away but I feel the surface of a trunk of a tree behind me. I'm pinned down. I just hope the D.U.P _does _get here fast.

"Even in your last few breathes, you're still lying" he says. "I was captured because I trusted people like you" he says putting spit in every one of his words. I feel a tang of guilt and felt sorry for the man.

"I swear on my life—

"You ain't got one anymore" he says. He drives the branch to my neck and feel it enter. The searing white hot pain makes me collapse to the ground holding onto the piece of bark. I try to breath but the wood was lodge deep, covering my wind pipe, blood poured out as I bleed to death in front of a god forsaken Bioterrorist. I felt the world become hazy, the man ran off into the woods again, my sight's starting to blur, darkness inching from the corners of my eyes. I feel the trickle of blood covering my entire hands and shirt. This was it… I was dying and it was all because I wanted to go outside…

My eyes snap open. It's still daylight. My head felt groggy and disoriented. I try to stand up but the sudden rush in my head slammed me back to the ground. I try to get my head together, everything was still foggy, I was having a hard time to see what was in front of me or what was making those snapping noises. I hear distant shouts and cries as more snapping and bending wood echoed along with them. I try to reach of my head when I suddenly remember the man and what he had done to me. I should be dead! I try to touch the lodged bark on my neck but I don't feel it, I don't even feel a hole where it should have entered me. I look down and see no blood on my shirt or hands. I'm flabbergasted, I don't know what just happened or if it _did _happened. A scream, not too far, broke my attention. I turn towards its direction and looked up; large and thick branches, were being uprooted like tentacles grasping the sky. I moved back, it was _real. _Then how was I still alive?!

I turn to run away from the battle going on in front of me. I run as fast as I could, dodging trees and rocks and shrubs as I jumped over boulders and slid under fallen trunks of trees. For some unknown reason, I knew what I was doing, what was coming up behind the line of trees in my peripheral and what I was going to do once I met those lines of trees. It was like I could see what I was going to do in my mind, everything I was going to do today. My mind raced, my body reacted, I easily got off the muddy path and back to the park. I still don't see anyone, everyone was probably in their homes spending the day off with their relatives, like what I was going to be doing later until— wait, what? How do I know the D.U.P was going to knock on our front doors later during our family dinner? I shake the thought away, I need to get home. But first, I still need to buy some groceries


	2. Chapter 2

Buying the groceries for mum had made my day a lot more mundane. Apparently, not a single person heard or seen the gunfire, shouts or explosions I heard running away from the scene. With groceries in hand, I headed my way home.

Mum had just finished fixing the turkey when I came home. It's a little too late for thanksgiving turkey but this was _my _family's tradition and who am I to say that it's better if it was stake instead of turkey? I hand her the groceries and the change and pretended not to hear her when she asked about my clothes being grimy and dirt caked. I run upstairs and take my clothes off, the smell of earth still wafting through my nose. I jump into the shower and try to lessen my stress over what happened. I'm still not convinced that I _exactly _knew what happened earlier. Apparently, the D.U.P has something from stopping anyone to notice their chaotic capture of that wretched Bioterrorist.

Anger bubbled up inside me. I curled my hand into fists and punched the wall. The moment my knuckles hit the tile, I braced for the pain to shoot from my hand, I was shocked that I had made a dent on the wall, cracking a few tiles and didn't even felt a thing. I yank my arm back examining it for cuts, there wasn't a single one. My mind starts to find a valid explanation when it arrives at… a memory? No, it hadn't happened yet, somehow I know it hadn't happened yet, it was tonight's family dinner. My cousins from New York have arrived; Stacey, Mike and their parents are greeted by mum and dad at the front door, I try my best to socialize with them but I fail and instead head back to my room until dinner. I'm by myself in my room, watching the window for any D.U.P to arrive. My mind jumps to the scene of the dinner, when the D.U.P knocked on our door. I'm the one who answers it and is surprised to find a large man with his partner behind him standing in front of me. They yank me from where I stood and cuffs me—

My mother's knocking at the door stops my mind from reeling the images. They disappear and I'm back in my bathroom, the cold water running down and somehow relaxing me. I watch the cracks on the tile I made, mother's going to be angry about that. As if on cue, the crack suddenly starts to mend and disappear, the tile suddenly becomes what it looked like a few seconds ago. Was I going crazy? Was this just some imagination world I'm conjuring up because I'm dying in the forest where the man had _tried _to kill me? Mother's constant knocking on the door keeps me from thinking into it deeper. I wrap a towel around my waist and opened the door. "What is it?" I asked.

She's taken aback by how much force I had used on my voice. I must've sounded annoyed because there was a faint gleam of hurt in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, mum. I was just… a little tired, I guess" I say trying to lower my voice. "What do you need me for?" I asked again, this time trying my best not to be a douche to my own mother.

"Your father called, he's on the airport" she says. "They're going to arrive a little early, so you best get dressed"

"Okay, I will"

I close the door after mother left and walked back into the shower. I finish up and picked out a polo shirt and some black jeans. It wasn't like we were going out to eat, so I figured I didn't need to be dressed all fancy and the likes. I comb my hair and look one more time in the mirror. The bags under my eyes were dark, I wished they would just… disappear… and they just did. I step back and walk back closer to the mirror, trying to shake my imaginations off. They were gone. I should probably get scared about what has been happening since earlier. I should probably contact the D.U—And what was I going to say? I'm starting to hallucinate that I'm one of _them? _I don't think so, probably this is just the cause of post-traumatic stress. And since when _did _I have P.T.S?

I sit down in front of my drawing board and take out a sheet of paper and started to draw. My hands moved on their own, my mind suddenly referencing thing I might do turning them into a mistakes, my hand registers these thoughts—images—and try to avoid them as much, creating new routes for my hand to finish the drawing. When I finish, it's just ten minutes since I began, I could have sworn it felt longer than an hour. I take a look down at my drawing, more like a _prophecy. _It was a drawing of me, atop a mountain of rubble, armed D.U.P Soldiers line the bottom of the pile, their bodies oozing out blood as they collapse on the floor, dead. My hand is raised to a fist, above me are three other individuals—Bioterrorists—and what seems a motion of cheering. It was like I was one of them. This was a war scene, a victorious one but nonetheless.

I feel a sudden feeling of content that I was successful at whatever fantasy I had just drawn. Something tugged in my head that this was going to happen but as if. I'm not a Bioterrorist nor would I ever want to be. They're freaks of nature whose only purpose is to be a medical lab rat so that we could cure incurable diseases like cancer and HIV. I try to think that even though they're _monsters _they still have a role to play out in society. That role's the only thing that's holding on to my view of them as _humans._

I fly down the stairs and into the living room where I spent the rest of the day surfing the channels on the TV about the recent Bioterrorist escapes, if there was one, and come out defeated. Not a single report of Bioterrorists in Oakley. I feel exhausted but at the same time I want to do something productive until my cousins come over. I try to help with the kitchen work but mum pushes me away saying I have 'better' things to do. I give her a questioning look but she just smiles and carry on cooking. I walk back up stairs and pop open my computer and try to find anyone I could chat or waste time with… waste time. A thought entered my mind and for some unexplainable reason, I followed it through. I face the small clock on the side of my bed. It read 3:22 P.M. my cousins would arrive around 5 or 5:30. I close my eyes and imagine the hands of the clock moving faster, along with them, the time of the day. I stop the hands at exactly 5:00 P.M. I know this was stupid but with the self-fixing tile and my near-death experience, I'm probably open to the thought that this _was _the afterlife. I open my eyes and I'm speechless to what I see, it was 5:00 P.M. I look outside my window and see the sun was about setting.

My mind races back to the images of me standing near my window, looking out for D.U.P trucks or the likes. My stomach suddenly starts to spin, then a horrific thought entered my mind: I wasn't dead, this wasn't the afterlife. I'm a Bioterrorist. I was one of _them._


	3. Chapter 3

No. It's not true. I'm not like those _things! _I pace around my room trying to explain whatever I just did with the clock. Maybe it was just my imaginations? I take a look at the clock reminding me it wasn't my thoughts, this was real. What would my parents, my friends think of me?! I slam my fist against the wall expecting it to hurt but it just makes another dent. I don't fix the cracks, I walk away, towards the door of my room. My mum calls out from the living room. They're here. An image of the D.U.P men in my front door pulled me towards the window, I look down thinking they're already there, pretending to be my father and cousins. I shake my head, it's not possible for me to be a Bioterrorist.

I pull myself away from the window, everything was fine. This was probably just some trick of the mind. I should probably tell my parents about what happened earlier, too. I decided I will but not right now, right now, I put on a happy face. The turn towards the mirror, smiling was not for me. I shake my head to get rid of any other ill thoughts and walked out of my room. An image appears in my head…

I'm standing alone under the light of the moonlight. I'm tired, dirty and had puffy red eyes. I was crying, running, hiding from the D.U.P. I wandered through a hillside until I collapse on some dusty road. A lone man appears in the distance, I can't make out his face but he stops a few feet from where my body had collapsed, he picks me up and—

I'm back. My foot hanged in the air above the first step of the stairs. Did I just almost fall? If I was a Bioterrorist, I needed to get my shit together and not get myself killed by my own actions. No, fuck that. I am _not _a Bioterrorist.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

I met my cousins in the living room. Stacey, in her pink outfit of a skirt and jacket, and Mike with his punk-nerd like attire. I give them a firm handshake trying my best not to look nervous or worse, hiding a terrible and awful secret. We sat in the living room, talking and chatting about our schooling, how hard my course was in college, how was everyone, who was getting married, who died. The normal talks about normal family lives, until Mike opened his big mouth about a Bioterrorist in New York.

"Yeah" he starts. "The fucker was my friend before he revealed to us he could lit himself on fire"

I felt sweat trickling on my forehead. I wipe it quickly when no one was looking.

"My boy was terrified, but Mike did the right thing by calling the D.U.P" his father, Uncle Roland, patted him in the back congratulating him for what he did. Would my own family turn me in?

"What happened to him?" I asked. They looked surprised at me, this was the first time I opened my mouth since they started talking about everyday life.

Mike smiled. A chill rang up my spine. "They snatched him up and even gave me money for informing them" he says proudly. "two grand" he put up two fingers in the air.

"It's all money with you" says Stacey. I hear the anger in her voice. "Don't you know they _experiment_ on the Conduits?"

"Don't use that word in this house, young lady!" I was taken aback by Uncle Roland's sudden outburst. Dad stepped in when Uncle approached as shocked and surprised Stacey.

"Hey, Roland, she's your daughter. Don't go raising your voice like that" he says trying to calm his brother. Auntie Meryl stood up and without a word, walked to the kitchen to help mother with the preparations.

"Well, it's true" she says. I feel like Stacey's enjoying pulling her dad's strings. "They're being hurt just so people could make money out of them through medicine" she says. "But what the D.U.P is doing to them to get those medicine are just cruel"

"And you should probably shut the fuck up" says Mike. This earns him a glare from both of us. He shrugs. "What? I'm just telling you an advice, Uncle Jonathan wouldn't be able to hold unto dad if you keep blabbering your mouth like that"

I suddenly feel a prick of anger inside me. I focus on the drink in Mike's hand, I picture it tipping over spilling the drink all over his pants. The glass shook, he doesn't seem to notice, he was still bickering with his sister when the glass tipped and wet his crotch. "Fuck!" he yelled standing up. The room fell silent. Stacey laughed first, I followed and later dad and uncle did too. He stands up, his face red and walked off towards the washroom, avoiding looking at other people's faces. Stacey was still laughing when Uncle Roland sat down and tried to talk things through with his daughter. I followed Mike to the washroom.

I can hear him cursing inside the washroom. "You need help, Mike?" I asked knocking softly at the door. He opens the door in a wedge and stuck his head out.

"I can use a pair of pants, dude" he says. I hand a pair over and he takes it. I enter the room and see him in his boxers as he puts on a new pair. "Thanks, dude. I must've accidentally let lose my grip" he says. I wish I could tell him I did that and to see his face when I did, it would've been priceless.

"Nah, don't sweat it. People tend to forget they're holding things when they're in a heated argument" I say. He folds his soiled pants and looked at himself in the mirror. "Do you think what Stacey said was true?" I asked.

He turned to me and shrugs. "I don't give a fuck about those freaks" he says before walking out.

I was about to leave when another image reeled into my head. I was in New York, a battle was waging fiercely around me, Bioterrorists against D.U.P soldiers. I turned in circles watching men and women, some even children, utilized their power into fighting men armed with rocket launchers and a platoon of tanks. A woman flies by me at super speed and hits a soldier right in his chest, I could hear the bones being pulverized by the woman. She flies directly upwards avoiding bullets whizzing beside her. In the corner of my sight I see a young man who conjures balls of plasma, the heat so intense it was creating cracks in the cement of the pavement and even the columns of the nearby building. He sends the balls towards a couple of tanks and they explode in a fireworks of red and black smoke. Another woman lowered the temperature around her and formed ice barriers, protecting her and her fellow… _Conduits. _Before I could notice it, my entire body was moving. I easily evaded bullets from hitting me, I stretch out my hand out and create what looked like small circles where the bullets enter and don't go through, and instead they somehow travel back next to the soldier where they are killed by their own shots. I turn, my trench coat freely dancing behind me as another woman cooks up a large tornado a few blocks from where we were. I felt excited, felt invigorated, powerful; like no one could touch me while I was with them.

The vision, or memory, stopped by itself. I somehow was getting the hang of using my _powers. _But I was still not happy with the fact of me being a… what was I called? A Conduit? Or a Bioterrorist? I shake my mind off of it as I hear mother call me out to the dining room. I suddenly remember the two D.U.P soldiers in my front door. If what I think was true, I somehow was able to see the future, mend time and even use my mind to force things to _happen._ I try to fish out from my memories if I could remember the word I was looking for it.

I find all of my family sitting neatly on the dining room. I finally take my seat, pretend to say my prayers and finally dig in. as the family starts to talk about what projects in life they would be tackling in the future, my mind raced to _what _my future would look like, if I even had one.

Midway through the dinner, the doorbell rang. "Lee, can you please look who it is at the door" mother asked as she passed the mashed potatoes to dad.

"Mum, about that. I really need to use the restroom" I say. She gives me a look before shrugging and waving a hand for me to go. I took off and halfway through the hallway, I peered over my shoulder to see dad walking towards the front door. I hear the door open and dad asks who they were. I needed to act fast. I entered the restroom and locked the door. I push and heave the bathroom window, it only opens a third of the quarter but it was enough for me to fit. I hear some commotion from the dining room. I start climbing out. I'm about to drop from the window when the washroom door bursts open in a cloud of wood and splinters.

"Stop right there!" shouts a man in bluish body armor holding a stun _rifle _in his hands, directly pointed at me.

"Sorry, got to go" I say before dropping to the grass. I get on my feet quickly and weave my way across mum's back garden. If I had superpowers, I wish they'd just— I see myself jumping over the fence and into the neighbor's backyard. I follow through my visions and I find myself in running out into the opposite street. I hear sirens in the distance, roughly the other side of this neighborhood.

I run down the street when the cruisers come into view. Fuck. Aside from precognition and… Telekinesis! Now I remember, what else do I have? I have does circles that transport things from point A to B. I just don't know how to _create _them. Whatever I have else, I need to figure things out because the cruisers are heading towards me at lightning speed. I firm my stand, I try to imagine what I saw in my vision, the bullets entering and exiting at a different place. How the bullets seemed to vanish when they entered the space inside the circle. The first cruiser was a few yards away when something sparked a few feet in front of me. A crackle, a snake-like jagged movement of something blue caught my attention. I fail to notice the cruiser because I was too captivated by the sparks, I moved into action. I was about to jump out of the way when it suddenly vanished and reappeared a few meters in the sky, falling head first unto the other cruiser. The sound of metal crunching metal and glass shattering echoed in the empty street. Lights suddenly flashed and illuminated the houses as the civilians start to spill out into the street. I see dad, mum and my cousins coming out from the far corner of the street. This was getting out of hand, I never meant for anything like this to happen, I never wanted to be a… a… a "Conduit!" I shouted.

At first I didn't noticed it. I thought everyone was just shocked or surprised that they stood in place, but the more I spent in that moment, watching everything at a standstill, I was surprised to find that I had _stopped _them from doing anything. Time had stopped under my commands.

**Author's note: Do you guys want longer chapters or shorter ones? I trying different styles of writing and first person seems to stick with me the best, you can critic my work and even the foulest ones (I just hope you DON'T give me one) is welcome as long as it would help me in writing better and improving myself for the best. Thank you for spending your time to read and write about my story.**


	4. Chapter 4

January 4, 2012. I've made it to the news. They call me "Temporal" because of my 'unique' ability to control time. A spokesperson from the D.U.P calls me a monstrosity that needs to be captured in the shortest time possible, that I was a threat to the whole of humanity. As I watched the news report of my case, I notice that some people were looking down my direction. Of course, the man with a pulled up hoodie in the middle a snowy street wouldn't call out attention but a man with a hoodie that was so intent in watching the news about a Bioterrorist might catch the eyes of someone or two. I hear footsteps approach me. "Give us your money, bud" says the voice from behind, I feel something poke the side of my back.

"I've had a very, _very, _tiresome week, fellas. You'll get nothing from me" I say, my eyes not leaving the TV screen. I inch my eyes a little up and see their reflection in the glass. Two men, one ebony skinned and the other looked like Asian.

"I said, give us the money. Now" he repeats, jabbing the tip of the blade.

I feel a trickle of anger spike in me as I feel a small dribble of blood runs the side of my back. I dig my hands into my pockets. "Okay" I said. "Let me just—I spin around, time suddenly slowing down for me to see the unregistered look of surprise in their face just before my elbow hits the black man in the face and my leg sweeps the Asian dude's feet off the ground. They fall fast, before they even knew what hit them, I was already walking away. I hear them groan in pain as they rolled on their backs and stood up. My mind gives an image of them running at me, the black man's hand tightly gripped on the handle of the blade.

My ears pick up the sound of running feet. I turn to face them and they stop in their tracks. I've picked up a special trick during my three days of running, I'm able to mend the space around me and create portals to transport an object or someone. They're surprised when they see my feet being eaten by the ground, I 'fall' quickly into the ground. I emerge a few feet above them and drop my feet on the man's knife and kick it with force, sending it spinning through the air, burying itself in the snow. "Neat trick, huh?" I say as I bring my knuckle towards his face.

"Bioterrorist!" shouts the Asian guy. He turns to look if anyone hear him but his face turned grim when the people around him had stopped moving. I've already frozen time around us and let them move freely around to experience the strength of a _true _Conduit.

"Time. Telekinesis. Space. I've got a big bag of tricks under my sleeve, would you care to experience some?" I ask as I lift him through the air and into a nearby dumpster. I snap my fingers and time moved back the way it should be.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

I found myself walking towards an old abandoned apartment just outside the skirts of the city. I had travelled from Oakley to Wisconsin in a few hours, trying to understand my powers along the way. I learned a couple of things: I was able to stop, fast-forward and replay time, I can't rewind a living organism's timeline except mine and my telekinesis has a large range area. I'm in the middle of understanding Space Manipulation when I saw the news about me from the big TV's in the store. i had thought about calling my parents many times in the past two days I had ran, but every single time I imagined the D.U.P wire-tapping our lines and be on top of my location the moment I drop the call. I'm starting to learn just how hard it is for these _things—_Conduits—live being on the run for what they have.

The apartment was old and the walls looked brittle enough that if I punch a wall through them, the entire building might collapse. I find a couch fairly in good condition. I touch the hand of the furniture, feeling the soft surface and try to imagine what it looked like before it was lone forgotten in a moldy and stuffy apartment. Bright colors, no patches of fabric sewn on it to stop the springs from popping out. I imagine it having that new upholstery smell, leathery. I watch as the skin of the couch molded and started to change, reversing time was the easiest thing for me to learn. A few minutes later, the entire living room looked much like it would a few years ago. It felt like it didn't belong in the space area as the dilapidated kitchen, hallways, bedroom of the bedlam apartment. I laid on the couch replaying the memory of my encounter with the Bio—er, Conduit—at the park. Should I go find him, thank him? Or should I make him pay for what he has done to me? Or something else… free him from the D.U.P? I spend a good few minutes lounging on the couch before a solid plan entered my mind. I was going to find someone who knew things about Conduits. Who had experiences with them and try to live among them, make a place for us here in the states. I don't know how long it's going to take me until I find them but I will.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

I'm in the city again. All around me are Conduits fighting the D.U.P forces and their own breed of Conduits. I see lightning shoot from the sky and blasting asphalt from the road, hitting three D.U.P soldiers. The sound of thunder roared above, I raise my head to see the woman flying from one direction to the next, easily avoiding beams of energy from the D.U.P's Conduits. The same man I saw creating balls of plasma was running towards me. "Dude, don't just stand there, do something" for a moment I thought he was talking to someone else, I turn to see I was alone in the middle of the road, everybody else seemed to have scrambled, taking on D.U.P's own Conduit army.

I realize I have regained my control over my body. This usually doesn't happen in these kinds of dreams. I lift my arm, focusing on the targets in front of me, just as I was about to fast-forward their time, turning them to ash, I'm hit by a powerful wave of unseen force. I fly through the middle of the street and slam against a building two blocks away. I feel a sudden jolt of pain from where my right arm had been impaled by a sword. The clouds from the forming tornado vanishes as the one creating it is taken down by another Conduit. I see two figures walking towards me, one female and the other male. The man, golden hair, squared jaw and rugged look vanished from sight and reappeared inches from where I was. He slams his fist on my stomach and I feel like I was being hit by a sledgehammer. The woman stretches out her arm and the sword flies back to her. I try to block the man's punches but time doesn't seem to slow down for these two. I block a punch from the man with my uninjured arm as I begin fixing the hole in my other left by her blade. The man suddenly jumps back, landing beside his partner. They were charging right at me when a beam of plasma hits the girl.

He stands in front of where I had been on my knees. His hands blazing a deep cobalt color. His face scrunched up, mouth turned into a snarl, a line of deep red blood running down from his forehead to his chin. He sends another bolt of plasma towards the duo just in time for the woman to slice one of them, Flight girl swoops in and smacks dead center in the other man's jaws. I regain my footing and my cuts and bruises have disappeared. I'm at my full potential. I clasp my hands together in front of me and slowly pull them away, space inside them was being warped, twisted in every direction. I could see the images behind it swirl and bend, the pavement looked like a snake writhing in different shapes until a small black dot appeared in the center. By this point I had lost control of my body, I was just a spectator to whatever was going to happen next. The black dot started to grow, getting bigger until it was half the size of the entire space between my palms. I slowly compress it tighter as my hands slowly move together again, then I pulled them free—

January 5, 2012. The light of the sun rays entered the room giving it an eerie atmosphere. I've been asleep for eight hours. I feel myself fully rested. I revert the apartment's living room back to the way it was and headed out. My mind still figuring out what happened in my vision about that small black dot.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Milwaukee was far behind the rear view mirror when I stopped the car. Much like the things I had in my bag, or the clothes I wore today, the car was also 'borrowed' from the unsuspecting people of the city. I drop the key inside the glove compartment and then lock the doors from the outside with my telekinesis. I start walking towards the south, I planned on heading to Chicago and from there, get on a bus and leave for Los Angeles.

Cars passed by me, not a single one stopped. I don't blame them, though. In a world were normal humans co-exist, in just the term, with Conduits, who knows if the guy you decided to pick up would have the ability to control time and space and shoot you into the air with his mind. People tend to be generally cautious near others. I reach a small town with a welcome sign saying it was at least another thirteen miles before Chicago. I sidestep off the road and head off into a muddy paths verging to the left and into the side of Lake Michigan.

The lake was serene, undisturbed by the forces of humans. I feel refreshed just by walking beside it. I near the town and see a lot of people were hanging around the pier, enjoying the last few hours of the sun. I sit down, a good one hundred yards from the nearest person, an elderly man eating a sandwich with his Labrador beside him, lazily lounging on the sands. I let my mind wander off into my visions, how accurate they were and how _real _it all felt. I hadn't noticed that I was twiddling my thumbs over each other until I scrapped my finger with the overgrown fingernail. I watched my skin tear and bleed a thin line of red. I focus on the cut and it slowly disappears, the skin slowly realigning and mergin into one.

"Cozy, isn't it?" a voice asked from behind me. I leaped out, ready to run—or fight—if it was the D.U.P. my body suddenly relaxed when I saw it was just a girl.

Not just any girl. A beautiful one, at best. Her red, almost flaming, hair hugged the shape of her face and fell to her back. Her hazel eyes seem to sparkle against the setting sun's rays, her thin lips, and her long, straight nose. I felt my heart just skip a beat right now. She was dressed in jeans with a short skirt and a floral denim vest over a white Skullcandy tee.

"Are you just shy, or deaf?" she asked with a chuckle.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to stare" I said. "I should probably get going" I say jabbing my thumb over to the direction behind me.

"Oh no, please. Stay, I got no one to talk to and it'll be really nice to meet new people in this small town" she says taking a sit, Indian style, beside me. I stand there for a moment, thinking of what to do next. "So… are you going to sit or just chat while standing?"

I decided to sit.

"So" she starts. "I'm Emily, what's your name?"

"Uh, well" I can't tell her my real name, I'm all over the goddamn news. "It's kind of… long" I say.

"It's okay" she says. "If you don't want to tell me, it's cool really. It adds to the whole mysterious guy image you have"

"What?" I asked, I feel a force tugging my mouth into a smile. "I'm _mysterious?_ You're the one suddenly popping out of nowhere" we both laughed.

"Well, if you live in a quiet little town where even the bark of a dog would echoed in the entire area, you learn a couple of stealth tricks to escape your parent's watchful ears" she says.

We spent a few minutes just enjoying the silence. During that silence, I was able to come up with a name… or a 'nickname' to my supposedly 'long' name. "It's Harvey, by the way"

"What was that?" she asked, her eyes searching my face for… something. "That's not really a _long _name, Harvey"

"It's my second name. Everyone just calls me by that" I say.


	5. Chapter 5

January 5, 2012.

"So, Harvey, you're new in town or are you just passing by?" she asked picking up a twig sticking out of the sand. She proceeds to bend it, trying out its flexibility.

"I'm not really sure" I say. "I do need to go to Chicago, but I'm in no rush to get there any time soon"

"Why? Are you on the run?" she asks.

I know it was a joke, but out of all the things you could joke about, she picked that? My heart, for a moment, spiked out of my chest, I swore I should have died by a sudden heart attack. I felt sweat forming on the back of my neck. I assured myself it was just a joke and tried to make myself look and talk more social. "I wish" I suddenly spoke out. "I'm orphaned" _Fuck._

I see the sudden gloom in her eyes. I did not meant to do that.

"You too, huh?" she says with a calmness in her voice, like she was actually relieved to hear I was orphaned. "At least, you get to go all over the states" she sighs deeply throwing the stick at the lake.

I watch the stick fall into the water. I creates a ripple that gets carried away by the waves. "Well, I'd actually trade my life for yours, having a permanent home and all" I don't know where this conversation is heading. "Anyways, is there any abandoned houses nearby?" I asked.

She chuckles. I want to change the topic so badly, I don't want to give her any more sorrow and grief that she already feels. "There's a few ones southeast of here, near the train tracks" she points out towards the town. "Clifton is a very small town with only a few of its houses outside the main street occupied"

"Thanks" I say. I stand up and pull down my hoodies, my newly dyed blonde hair covers my eyes as they have grown too long. I sweep my bangs to the side and find myself smiling, not at her, but with her. The entire time I sat beside her and through our depressing conversation was the first solid human interaction I had since my run or, because of my introvert nature, in a really long while. I enjoyed her company. "I should probably settle in for the night"

I turn and walk away.

"Do you have any food with you? Or even new clothing?" she asked following me towards the end of the lake, where a gravely path led to an asphalt road not too far from where it begins.

"Thank you for the concern, but really, I'm fine" I say, not turning to look at her. "Best you not get mingled with my problems"

"Oh" I hear a pang of disappointment in her voice. "Okay, then"

She turns to the other direction and walks away. The lake was empty of people now, not a single person except me and Emily. I hear her footsteps go saintly silent and knew for sure I was alone. All too sudden, a shriek rips through the silence. I turn to see Emily was standing, frozen still, in front of three wild dogs; their teeth bared and rabid foaming in the sides of their mouth. Emily tries to back away but the Alpha, a large brown-grey one, growled and the other two, much smaller than the Alpha, moved in, creeping towards the girl. "Emily!" I shout running up to her.

It happened so fast. One of the dogs jumped on her, I threw my arms forward wanting to reach her but instead sent an invisible wall of force directly to the dog. This 'force' caught the dog in mid-air and throws it a good hundred yards into the lake. The sound of splashing caught the other dogs off-guard. I reached her just in time as the second of the Alpha's pack jumps on her. I yank her backward and met the dog with a punch to its lower jaw. It squeals in pain as it lurched up back on its feet, shaking the pain away. The Alpha bared its teeth at me but I wasn't afraid at all. Ever since I knew how to _partially_ control my powers, I never felt afraid in my life again.

The Alpha jumps but I catch it in mid-air with my telekinesis. I turn to see Emily speechless, her hands covering her mouth. I turn back just in time to guard myself from the other dog's attack. Its teeth sinks deep into the flesh of my left arm. I held the Alpha in place but I couldn't shake the other one off of me. I slam the Alpha against a nearby tree to knock it unconscious before I return my attention to the one biting my arm. I use my telekinesis to pry its jaw open but the pain had started to reel in and my knees started to buckle from sudden exhaustion. I can't get it off of me, it trashed around, my arm felt like it was going to pop off of its socket, or worse, totally get ripped off. I hear Emily screaming, I guess she's not a fan of a Conduit, then.

The branch smacked against the side of the dog and it loosens its grip on my arm just enough for me to pry it fully open by my telekinesis. It jumps away from me. I turn to see Emily holding the branch near her chest, she's breathing deeply, she was scared and yet she helped me knowing I was a _Bioterrorist. _"Fuckin' dog!" I scream as I force all my power to a single, powerful blast of telekinesis that sends it flying off farther into the lake than its other companion.

The adrenaline quickly settled into my veins. My knees gave out and I sunk to the ground on my ass. Emily was shaking all over, her knees gave out as well and we both sat next to each other, trying to understand what just happened. I focus on the bite mark and try erase it from existence but it stays there. My head suddenly feels woozy, like I was about to pass—

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

The bed was somewhat cozy to lie in. I could get used to using a warm bed again. I try to sit up but a throbbing pain in my arm shatters my gathered strength and I fall flat on the bed again. The room was fairly lit, a window to my left and a table to the right. A closet, with one of its doors wedged open by a hanging scarf, was in front of the foot of the bed and the door leading to the rest of the house was next to it. When I first came to, I thought I had been captured by the D.U.P, with Emily seeing my use my powers, I was sure she'd call them by now. Fortunately, she didn't call them and instead brought me to her house… well, technically it was her 'auntie's' house. She sat near the foot of my bed when my eyes first opened. Her eyes were teary in all of her splendid beauty.

"Good" she said. "You're awake"

"Where am I?" I ask trying to look around the room.

"You're in Auntie's house" she says. "Well, actually, my house. I call her out into the lake when you passed out after you helped me with the dogs"

I suddenly remembered the fight. How I was unable to use my Time Manipulation on the bite. I looked down on my arm, it was covered in white gauze.

"Auntie fixed up the bite mark, she even gave you a shot of anti-rabies" she says.

Rabies. Somehow, I knew that it had affected my ability to heal my injuries through reversing time. I push the thought for now and try to focus on what was present: Emily seeing me use my powers. Her eyes searched my face while I looked at hers. There was a fleeting moment between us at that point. Her hands found mine and when she finally spoke, I knew it was going to be about me.

"So…" she starts, I see in her face that she doesn't want to finish her sentence. "You're a…"

"Bioterrorist?" I say, cutting her off. "Yeah, I am"

"Auntie didn't believe when I told her" she says. "But you saved me, why?"

"Isn't that what people should do?" I say. "Co—Bioterrorist or not, it's not right to leave a person to fend for themselves"

This brings a faint smile to her. "Thank you" she says before laying a kiss on my forehead. "I won't call the D.U.P" she turns around and walks towards the door. "You can stay here for as long as you want, Harvey, but you should keep you power _show _at a minimum" she closes the door after her and I was left to my own thoughts.

I drifted off into another vision. I know it was a vision, it was somewhat apart from my dreams and every single on my visions so far felt so _real. _I was in the same room I was laying on now. I was a bit older, maybe I was 24? 25? I wasn't so sure but I was sure of the person standing in the doorway. Emily. Her flowing red hair glistened against the moonlight, she was smiling at me while I laid on the bed, arms under my head and staring at her. She walked towards me and stayed a few feet from the bed, revealing her white nightgown. "Hey, sleepyhead" she greets me with a smile.

"Hey" I reply, my voice was deeper and more baritone than what it was now. She sat on the foot of the bed, a much larger one now that I notice, than the one I laid on now, and laid beside me.

"You smell good, today" she jokes. "No fighting on your work today?"

"No. Just some papers I had to tend to about the whole situation in Seattle" I said. _What happened in Seattle? Was that the fight I keep envisioning? _My mind was just a fixed observer in this vision. She had ages much like I had, she's probably 23 now. This was by far the longest distance in time my visions has taken me. Our lips touch and I could feel how the heat, the passion we both put into that kiss.

"Wake up!" a voice ringed in my head and my eyes opened to the bright rays of the sun high up in the sky. Emily sat on her legs watching, poking my face with her finger like some child. "Can you show me more of what you can do?" for a moment, I couldn't take my mind off of the vision I had, Emily was so close to my face, I could just reach for her and plant a kiss right now, but of course, there was the whole thing with me being on the run and bat-shit crazy things happen to me if I stay too long in one place.

"I thought you said I shouldn't go off using my powers around town?"

She smiles. It sends shivers down my spine how much I love to see her smile, already. "I know a place where you can use your powers and no one will find us" she yanks my hand and pulls me from the bed.

"Okay, okay" I said. "Let me just get dressed and eat breakfast"

"Sure"

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

True to her words, Emily led me to an abandoned coal factory just north of the town. The path winding up to the factory was hidden behind shrubs and overgrown patches of grass. You couldn't really find it if you didn't went out and searched for it. The inside of the factory was massively spacious, the machines planted to the ground were either taken out by the owner or looted by the nearby or passing gangs to earn some quick fix. Only the concrete columns stood in intervening distances all throughout the entire main hall of the factory.

"I come here when I'm bummed-out about something or if I just want to paint" she says extending her arms open and doing a short twirl.

"You draw?" I ask entering the place by ducking under some rusted pipes and fallen parts of the roof.

"Uh huh" she says pointing towards the direction of a set of rusted double doors, which I presumed led deeper into some annex part of the factory. "You go straight there and then a left to where I usually stuff my paintings behind old metal cabinets"

I clasp my hands together then rub them. "I can really use this place for practice" I say. I open a rift in space a few feet in front of me and I jump in. I appear on the second floor balcony above the double doors she pointed at earlier. I feel great, the bite wasn't aching so much as it was this morning and I was actually exhilarated with the thought of me finally starting to get a hang of understanding my powers' full potential.

"Hey, cool!" she shouts from below. "You can teleport! I never seen a Conduit do that before"

"It's not really teleporting" I say. I jump down another rift and appear right behind her. "I bend time _and _space. I can create rifts in two different places that are connected"

"Can I use them?" she suddenly asked.

"Well… I don't really know if I can transport another person aside myself"

"Then that's great!" I look at her with bewildered eyes. This wasn't the same Emily I saw in the lake yesterday, she was different. She was… perfect. "There's always a time to test things out"

"I'm not sure that's a great— before I could protest, she had already gripped me by my wrist and jumped feet first into the rift.


	6. Chapter 6

Rather than appearing on the second floor balcony of the factory, like we were supposed to. We somehow stumbled out into a vast desert with no sign of civilizations for miles on any direction. The scorching sand burned my face when I realized where we were. I stood up, brushing the sand off of me. "Emily!" I shout out. I start to panic as the thought of losing her in a desert started to creep into my mind. I turn in a circle trying to make out anything from her hand sticking out of the sand to her unconscious body sprawled on the hot sand.

"I'm here" a voice shouts from just beyond the dune near me. I can see her running up the dune and towards me. "What happened?" she asked when she finally got to the bottom.

"I don't know. But I think we should probably not do that again"

"Not do that again" she says flicking her finger into a check shape in the air. "Check" she turns around and faces me. "But how do we get home?"

I shrug. "We start walking?"

"And die out here in the middle of nowhere?"

She's probably right. I wouldn't want to get caught in a sandstorm with not a shelter in sight. I reach out my hand, she looks at it before taking it. "If we're going to jump into a rift again, it'd be best if I went first" I said. She nods and I use my free hand to open a rift in front of us. I try to imagine what Clifton looks like, or even just the factory. I peer my head into the rift, it comes out into the just outside of the factory.

"I hope this time, we land where the rift is actually _meant _to transport us to" we walked through the rift.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

We arrived in Seattle. The space needle loomed behind us like a giant guardian of the city. This was D.U.P central and something tells me the sirens blaring around us meant to signal any Bioterrorist's arrival into the area. Armed guards swooped in from all over the place, appearing from corners and over closed fences, I feel Emily tug at my arm just as the first batch of guards point their guns at us.

"Whoa, whoa, guys" I raise my arms in front of me putting up a feeble defense between the guards and us. "You don't need to point those things at us" I said, trying to calm the nervousness present in my voice.

"You have the right to remain silent, Bioterrorist" one of them says. I hear another order short commands to his intercom. "You two should just follow us so you won't get hurt" he says.

"She's not a Bioterrorist" I said. "She's got nothing to do with me"

Apparently, I was quiet famous in Seattle as one of them recognizes me and cackles in his suit, the sound becoming twistedly muffled and fear-inducing. "My god!" he exclaimed. "It's that Temporal kid"

"Heh, just our luck" says another one. I feel them inching slowly towards us, being cautious to what I was going to do. I braced myself for a fight.

The first three to come close enough to us, I send flying through the air with telekinesis. I warp the space around us bending the direction of the bullets away from us. I jump out of the shield with the full intentions of ending this with all D.U.P soldiers either knocked out unconscious or… dead. I grab a piece of a stair guardrail and swing it at the nearest soldier. He flies backward and hits his companion, I shoot out a bolt of telekinesis to send the two of them towards a brick wall of a nearby building. A group of soldiers had surrounded Emily but every bullet they fire gets redirected by the distortion of space around her. I need to finish this. I picture time slowing to a stop.

I had just smack the hell out of one of the soldiers when Emily's scream bought my attention towards her and a number of soldiers surrounding us. What happened? Time should have stopped by now. Something's wrong. I run towards them but something grabs my ankle and I slam face first on the hard concrete ground. "This is the great Temporal? Conduit—er, Bioterrorist of Time?" a voice said from behind me. I turn to see a young man, his face covered by the shadow casted by the hoodie of his jacket. His arms were… black. Black like the space, black like… shadows! A pair of thin black lines jut out at high speed from this fingers and headed right for me, I roll to the side to avoid one of them but the other still hits me by the leg. I feel a sharp pain emanated through my entire body.

"Harvey!" Emily shouts. No, don't get out of the field! She steps out from the distortion field and immediately the new guy's shadows forms a binding chain all over her body shooting out form the ground where they were all, much like tendrils, connected to the young man's feet. She falls to the ground with a loud thud, she tries to squirm to free herself, trashing about but I can see the chains only tighten around her.

"Emily! Don't move too much, the chains are tightening with every move you do!" I warn her. Her body stops moving, her head tilts towards me, her eyes watery with tears. "You'll be fine, you're not a Conduit, they'll release you soon, and I'm the one they want, not you"

"So sweet" says the young man. He slides down the hood of his jacket to reveal his face. Brown, army-cut hair, brown—almost amber—colored eyes. _Hunter. _My mind raced to recover a memory about a Conduit working under the D.U.P. His name was Hunter Paige, A.K.A "Shadow" because of his pesky yet extremely useful power. However, I note that Hunter seems to have a very low level of focus. I was able to easily levitate a pipe behind him without him noticing, I swing it towards his head but something slices it into several pieces which falls and creates hollow metallic cries in the sudden deathly quiet city of Seattle. Rings of black appeared behind him, moving about independently and in different direction, almost as if they had a mind of their own. "Did you really just tried that?" he asked rhetorically.

He uses his shadows to throw me high up in the air. I only know I was falling when I was only at least a few feet from the ground, I create a rift under me and fall through it. I appear on the top of a building just in front of the Space Needle.

"Cool trick, is that a variation of your Time Manipulation abilities?"

He doesn't know about my ability to mend space, yet. I can use it to my advantage. "Yeah, what? You thought I could just speed and slow down time?" I try to size up to him, try to provoke him. "If so, you're just as stupid as the rest of the D.U.P—

"Say that again?" She's already in front of me before I could finish. A woman with short, shoulder length blonde hair. When did she appeared? Something shimmered and glowed in her hands which was long enough to be a knife and was pressed against the skin of my neck.

"Photokinesis" says Hunter. "She bends the light around her to turn herself invisible from others" he 'melts' into the shadow pool under him and it travels from the ground to the wall of the building to the woman's side. He emerges from a tower of black. "Nifty trick, eh?"

"I'm the one you want, not her" I said, my eyes falling unto Emily on the pavement a street away from the building we were on. "She's not a Conduit, she just happened to grab me when I teleported" I said. I see two soldier drag her to a large black van. She's still trashing around, but thankfully Hunter had taken off his shadow chains around her.

"We'll decide later if she's worth keeping or not" this came from the girl. She has a sense of calmness, almost calculative.

"No" I say. I firm my feet and use my telekinesis to swat off her blade on my neck. It flies into the air before seemingly disappearing in a bright line of light. My left hook connects with her face and she staggers backward, Hunter was already moving but I was faster, I open a rift and he goes through it. I don't care where he ends up, now that he's gone, I could focus on saving Emily and returning her to Clifton. The Light woman had recovered and had begun chasing me through the rooftops, shooting at me with beams of light. I create a rift and jump through, appearing just behind her, I connect my hands and bring them down of her head just as she spun. She falls to the ground, stunned momentarily. I use this moment to jump off the rooftops and give chase at the black van.


	7. Chapter 7 - A New View

**Author here: I just like to say thank you for reading up to this point in my Fanfic, if you're wondering if characters from the game will appear, I'm planning on putting at least a few as cameos, also, I've added a new POV character that will become a future main protagonist... or antagonist, if you want him to be.**

Unknown. That's what they call me. It's not because they don't know my name, it's because they don't know the extent of my Conduit powers. Every time they try to lock me up, I just develop something new to break out of it; super strength, super speed, teleportation, magma generation, paralysis inducement… the list goes on, and soon enough, D.U.P gives up on me and just puts me in one of the most lavish hotels there is in Seattle. I could just walk out and leave and they'll have no choice but to let me, but they said that I could be of help to them, to the humans. Experiments after experiments, I keep giving them what they want, but they're not making progress, they're a bunch of idiots.

Blair was the only one who could convince me to stay, she was like me, only not so much powerful. She's a Conduit working for the D.U.P and it keeps me wondering why she and that obnoxious brother of hers join a bunch of stupid _mundane _people when we, the Conduits, could just rule over them. I guess her sense in justice and equality is just more mature than mine. I hear the blaring sirens of D.U.P and police cars running around the streets of Seattle, I open the TV, with telekinesis of course, and turn it to channel 9. There's a report of an ongoing chase between the 'Temporal' and a black van, the D.U.P has made everyone on the street to hide inside. I walk towards the window and peer down unto the street. One moment I was in the room, the next, I was in the spot where I had focused to appear in.

I should be _renamed, _I thought as I follow the sounds of the sirens. I don't want to be called 'Unknown' I want to be called something else, something cool like Blair's codename "Flux" or her brother's "Shadow". Unknown was just… bleh. I turn to the right when I reached the end of the street, I see people staring at me from the inside of the buildings' shops and restaurants. I turn myself invisible by bending the light, much like what Blair can do and I keep walking until I can't hear the sirens anymore because they were replaced by rapid gunshots.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

I bend space just before the first bullet hits my leg, it flies of towards a fence not too far from where I stood. I had catch up to the to the van by opening rifts throughout the city and making shortcuts all around the place until I could spot it in my line of vision, and since I couldn't—for some unexplained reason—use my Time Manipulation, I had to use what I had left in my arsenal. I open four small rifts where the wheels of the van fell into before closing them, cutting the wheels in half. The van skids to a halt, sparks shooting out from underneath.

The back door flew open and a number of armed soldiers pour out, their guns pointed at me. "I just want the girl!" I demanded as I send two of them sky rocketing into the air with my mind. They start shooting, but I'm too _pissed _to let them even hit me, forcefully bending space around me, the bullets just fly over, under and beside me, hitting whatever they come across later on in their new paths. Don't they know I'm the most _powerful _Conduit there could be? I'm sick of them trying to push us to bend over for the sake of people who always mistreat us. I extend my arm and shoot out a burst of telekinesis, it send at least one of them slamming against the flailing doors of the van. There's at least four left and I tear open a rift under them, they fall appear a few hundred feet in the air. I see Emily sitting on the far end of the van. Her eyes wide with terror, she must've seen how much of _monster _I really am.

My mind race back to my vision. Emily beside me, her skin touching mine. Everything felt surreal and… peaceful. Not like this. I break the cuffs on her arms and feet with my telekinesis and she quickly fumbles to take off the cloth on her mouth. "Harvey—

"I know" I stop her. "I'm a monster. I should probably get you back to Clifton and I should leave after that. I—" the sound of the men falling to the ground stops me for a moment. "I was—

"No. Harvey, look behind you!"

My brow arched and I turn. I see him wearing a smile on his face, his brown hair in tussles above his eyes and just above the shoulder. His eyes seem like purple irises from the glint of the sun's rays. No, in fact, they _are _purple, a deep shade of it, too.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

He's rather… different from what I had imagined the Temporal to be. He's around nineteen in my eyes, his blond hair was all over the place, falling just a few inches below his shoulders, a few strings plastered to his face due to sweat. Depp blue eyes that seem to hold hope stares at me, hands curled into fists. I should probably test him before helping him and his, whom I assume, girlfriend.

"Hello" I start. "I'm known as Unknown. The greatest discovery of the D.U.P since its founding. I hold at least seventy different forms of Conduit abilities ranging from flight to elemental manipulation and phasing. I do hope you live up to your name as Temporal, because I'd be disappointed if you're not"

I reappear in front of him and he jumps back in surprise. I sense a change in the space around me. He's also manipulating it. Good, a new scenario for my Adaptability Manipulation to overcome. I wait for my powers to activate by itself, revealing a new power but nothing happens, in fact, I was falling through the air before I notice it. I stop my fall and levitate a few meters from the ground. I hear a new set of sirens in the distance. I point my open hand at its direction and I fire a bolt of blue lightning, it hits the asphalt of the road a few feet from two blocks away and expands into a wall of blue sparks and lightning surrounding us in a large circle, encompassing a large area of Seattle.

Temporal looks in awe circling, watching the towering bolts of lightning surrounding us. "Let's have some fun, Temporal. I'm not going to kill you, I just want to know how good you are, but still, I won't hold back" I said diving down. He braces for an attack but I phase through him and then kicking him with both feet from behind. He falls down but it only last a second because he's gone, disappeared through a _rift _in space. He appears behind me and hits me in the back of the head. I phase through the pavement and fly through the earth gaining space between us, I rise up and solidify myself. He's looking for me but I've already turned myself invisible. I move my hands as if I was holding a bow and arrow, I pull back my right arm and fire.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

'Unknown' or whoever the fuck he is, has disappeared. I can't see him but I know that he's nearby. He's watching—A sudden jolt of pain emanates from my left side. I look down and see a blotch of blood starting to bloom from where I felt the pain. I turn in a circle and spot him near the edge of the street, he's holding a bow, he can also do construct? No, there's something wrong about it… it look like it was _alive. _Sparks jolt out from the bow and I dodge an arrow. Energy, the bow and arrows were made of energy. Electricity to be exact. How was I supposed to fight that?! I run inside the van and try to warp the space around us, but I'm already falling down from the sky before I could finish doing it. He's transported me, instantaneously. I flail my arms and feet trying to stabilize my fall but nothing works, I try creating a rift under me and that's all I could do to stop myself from splattering all over the ground. My heart was pounding against my chest, I've never felt this… scared before. I was foolish to believe I was untouchable. I suddenly stop mid-air, I'm suddenly sporadically moved left and right, my entire world shifted to the sides, up and down and everywhere. I feel my insides wanting to be vomited out. I see Unknown standing there, his finger flicking left to right and back.

"Telekinesis" he shouts. "Electrokinesis, Phasing, Invisibility and Flight. What else do you want me to show you?"

"Put—put—me down!" I demand. He stops and drops his finger, I fall flat on the ground. At least he had the decency to drop me at least a foot from it.

My entire body aches. The pain throbs in my left side, I think I'm going to pass out from blood loss. My eyes become blurry, the last thing I could see was that woman arriving behind Unknown, she was shouting at him, they argue and then there was just blackness.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"What the hell, Lehm?!" She shouts so close in my ears that I rings and echoes even if I shake my head to get rid of it. Now that's what I want as a power, to mute anyone I want to. "You're supposed to be in the hotel and _not _leave that place, do you know what the D.U.P would do—

"Blair" I say, stopping her mid-sentence. "I was just having fun. Besides, they couldn't do shit if I wanted to leave"

"That's not the _point, _Lehm" she puts her arms on her waist, she's on 'motherly-instincts' mode again. "And where the hell is Hunter anyway?"

"I'll check" I put two finger to my temple and close my eyes. I feel the vibrations of the thoughts of everyone around me, everyone in Seattle for that matter. "He's not in Seattle" I say.

"Damn fuck" she points at Temporal. "Sent him somewhere. I hope he's okay"

"He will be fine. He's your obnoxious, hard-to-kill brother after all" I walk towards the wall of lightning and start syphoning it. Guess I didn't needed to put one since no cops or D.U.P soldiers arrive. Blair shouts something in her native tongue of Gaelic and I turn to see Temporal gone. Blair runs inside the van and comes back out flustered. They're gone. I feel something tug at my mouth, I notice I was smiling. I wipe it off and walk towards Blair who was shooting beams of light to the sky. Something tells me it'll be an interesting year for us three and maybe if I can find Temporal again, we could finish our little fight.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Clifton. Thank god. We lay sprawled on the floor of the factory, Emily was unconscious but fine, and I on the other hand, was losing blood too fast. I focus all what was left in my strength to close and erase the wound. It took time, feeling the skin attach to itself and close the gap, I feel a sudden rush of relief as the wound finally closes completely. I turn to see Emily finally come to. She's disoriented but she quickly gets up on her feet. "I'm sorry" she says. "If I hadn't—

"It's not your fault. It's mine. I'm not used to using my powers _with _someone rather than _on _someone, which as demonstrated by Unknown, I too suck at"

She extends her hand at me. I take it and she helps me up.

"Guess you need training, then"

"Know anyone who's willing to train a Conduit?" I ask rhetorically.

She nods then shakes her head. "Unknown looks like the best candidate at the moment"

I raise an eyebrow to that.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author here: I created this chapter to show you guys just how... deranged or twisted Unknown's mind is. Also, what do you guys think? Did Lee tell his real name to Emily or not? Big, exciting chapters are up ahead as we get to meet new characters that will join Lee's team as the vision of the City-wide fights comes closer.**

"He tried to _kill _me" I said as I pace around the large space of the factory's main work area, jumping through rifts, appearing on the ceiling, balcony and even outside. I need to get a hang of these Space Rifts, especially if I need to bring someone with me into them.

"Well, it was just _my _opinion on the matter" she says before sitting in front of one of the columns. "He's the best shot we got, but you're right he does seem… demented"

"Oh, you think so? What kind of power was that anyway? Having _seventy _Conduit powers and easily having control over them. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the real deal with the D.U.P" I say. I sweep the hair off of my face, I really need a haircut.

"I don't get it. The _real deal? _What's that supposed to mean?" she asks.

What _did _I meant? "He— I don't know, the D.U.P's greatest asset, I guess" I scratch my head, trying to get a sense of it all. I need a drink, a cold hard beer would do the trick. "Know a place where we could grab a drink?"

She looks at me with an incredulous stare, mouth agape. "I'm just sixteen, Harvey… is that your _real _name, anyways?"

"Fine" I said. "I'll go grab my own at the local convenience store" I walk away. I'm about to duck under the pipes when I hear her shout.

"What's your real name, then?"

Do I tell her or not? I turn to her and open my mouth to answer…

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

January 9, 2012. Hunter came back around nine in the evening after missing for about three days. He says he was fighting Temporal one moment, the next he was in India. I wonder how long is the extent of Tem—Lee's space distortion abilities. Blair had been sitting by the window watching the people of Seattle under her go about their daily night routines when he bursts through the door, how he got here, I didn't want to know. I was more focused on tracking Lee to wherever he went, I hadn't developed any tracking powers since when in a survival situation would you need to _track _your enemies? A kill or be killed kind of situation, but I never been in one, people were too scared, the feel to hunt them down never arises and I never developed one. So, without tracking powers, where do I turn to? The Seattle Police Department.

It's a big building sitting at the corner of Davidson and Delaware. I climb the steps and enter the double doors into a, stereotypically, doughnut smelling lobby. Interestingly, the cops aren't really that much fat. I'm greeted by Det. John Lawson, a family friend, the Scott's family friend to be precise. "Lehm?" he's eyes grow wide in surprise. "What are you doing here?" he asked with a hint of disbelief in his own words.

"I need to find someone" I say. This peeks his interest. "A Conduit"

He backs away, hands up in surrender. "Whoa, whoa. I don't want to be involved in that kind of shit"

I stare into his eyes. I think he's grown used to me being around him, he turns away just before my _Mind Control _connects me to his mind. "Don't do that, I get nauseous after" he says massaging the bridge of his nose. I cock my head in curiosity, has he developed an early-warning sense about my Mind Control?

"I'm a bit busy right now, Lehm, best if you would to tell me what you want now. But I won't hold promises, not until we get a clue to where that kid went earlier"

"I'm here for the same reason, Det. Lawson" I say. "His name is Lee… something" I try to remember his full name, his family name. "Lee Schneider" another power that I should develop is perfect memory.

"What do you want with him? The D.U.P looking into hiring him?"

I shake my head. "No, not at all. With me, they don't need any other Conduit, except for Blair, Hunter and of course, Augustine" I turn and look the small window of the double doors. "I want to try something with him, an experiment of sorts"

He shakes his head. "Okay, I'll try to find any information about him. He's the star here in Chicago anyway, if he goes and do one mistake, he'll be exposed easily"

"Okay" I said walking towards the doors. "Take care, Det. Lawson"

"I will" I hear a faint hint of doubt or… hesitance. "You should just call me John"

"Will do, John" I said before closing the door behind me.

The mall was rather crowded tonight. Everyone's busy trying to rid their minds of the heavy presence of the D.U.P Soldiers. I'm a little agitated myself because I can't show off my power, the D.U.P might start firing at me, thinking I've gone rogue or something. The food court's the noisiest of the entire mall. Hunter sat in front of me and Blair beside me. We've been gouging on the large Special 4-Section Pizza I ordered fifteen minutes ago.

"So" Hunter starts, he's mouth is stuffed with Pepperoni pizza. "How do we find him?"

Blair glares at her brother. I know she doesn't want any of us getting hurt, and I respect her for that, but sometime I think of just fighting her and showing her that _nothing _can defeat me. Hurt, yeah, probably in the few seconds of my new powers developing.

"I don't know" I said taking a bite out of the Hawaiian pizza I hand in my hand. "Finding him is not really a threat, so my Conduit ability doesn't activate"

"Does your power only activate in threatening situation?" he asks.

"It does" this came from Blair. For the last thirty minutes or so of us waiting for the pizza and eating, this was the first time she actually spoke out about me or my powers. "Power like Lehm's need to at least have a safety switch, imagine if he could just _adapt _to everything he would think about? He'd be a god by this point in time"

"Time" I said. They turn their heads towards me. "It's not just time that Lee can use, he's also using space and telekinesis"

"Space-Time Manipulation, huh?" Hunter seems unfazed by this. "It makes sense since he transported me to India in a blink of an eye"

"Well…" Blair looks around, the number of D.U.P Soldiers have significantly been reduced. "What are we—

She's interrupted by loud shouting from one of the stalls in the main wing of the Food Court. A woman dressed… slutty, is shouting at another woman and her, I presume, boyfriend. They're arguing over something but I can't clearly hear. Everyone has become silent watching the commotion unfold as the woman in short, _very _short shorts slaps the woman then punched the man in the gut. The two aren't fighting back, probably too embarrassed by what's happening to do anything. My blood boils suddenly. I try to stand up but Blair puts a hand on my chest to settle me down on my seat. "Don't" she says. I can see Hunter's feeling a little bit… _hushed. _He doesn't go against what Blair says, especially if it would put them in the bad sides of the people. I teleport a few feet from the ensuing fighting. I step up behind the slutty dressed woman and give her a light tap on the shoulder, she turns around and slaps me across the face. I fall back a few steps in surprise.

"Mind your own business!" she shouts at me before returning to the two, she's arguing about the woman—a gorgeous but frail-looking girl with brown hair and grey eyes—stealing her man. Slutty girl was by far the ugliest woman I've seen, but it must be just my biased brain ganging up on her because she slapped me. I regain my ground, I turn to look Blair and Hunter starting to stand up, I hold out a hand to them and they suddenly get magnetized to the chairs. _Polarity Shifting. _I return my attention to the woman in front of me. I walk between them and try to let the two get space away from the harassing one. "Everybody, calm down" I say.

Slutty girl jumps on me and her fist homes in on my face, but I catch it in mid-air. I try my best not to break her hand. I give her a smile. "Can we please just get this thing with you three over? You're scaring the shoppers" I said.

"Let me go, asshole!" the woman uses her other hand to slap me, I let her, so that she wouldn't assume I'm something else, but I don't let go of her hand. I see the security guards coming closer and I use Polarity Shifting to pin their feet to the floor. This bitch ain't walking out of this place alive. "I said, let me go!" I do and she stumbles back and falls on her flat ass.

"I'm sorry, sir" says the brunette. "I never did her wrong. She's my friend and she's just a bit drunk" I give respect to this girl, trying to defend someone else's mistakes.

"Not to worry" I say. "Let's just go to the security office to get this mess straighten out"

"Oh fucking hell am I going to listen to you" I hear her from behind, she taking something out of her bag. I sense the sudden jolt of electricity in the air. A taser. The device comes closer to my skin but it disintegrates before it even touches me. The woman losses her balance and falls to the floor, I hear gasps from the crowd but I think they don't know what _exactly _happened. They just saw the woman tripping because of the angle we were in from them. I turn and face her.

"Are you going to fucking go with us or am I going to hit you?"

"Heh!" she sounds like she's actually picking a fight. "Go ahead, bub. I'll see you in court if you do that. Women's right, remember?"

"Oh yes" I say. "I remember. Such a shame that there's something like that to protect stupid-ass women like you" I reply. This drains the color on her face. "You think I give a shit about women's right? Yes, actually I do. But I don't give a fuck about you"

I placed her in a Polar Shifted zone. She weighs heavier and can't even lift a muscle. "I can't get up!" she starts screaming. "Somebody help me" she shouts.

I smile. The brunette and her boyfriend's frozen still, their feet won't move. Everyone in the entire mall is frozen in their place right now. I kneel in front of her. Everyone's looking at me with scared or awed stares. "Die" I said before touching her shoulder, she screams in pain as she disintegrates into dust. I make the process incredibly slow to squeeze out all the screaming and the cussing from her mouth until her head was left and then, nothing. I turn to the two. The guy's pissed his pants, a dark splotch appearing from his crotch and running down one side of his pants. I try as hard not to laugh.

"For ruining my day with my friends, but being such a beautiful girl, I'm going to give you a choice on how to die. If you don't give me an answer in the next ten seconds I'll—

"Painless" she shouts. I'm a bit surprised on how fast she reacted. I wasn't really going to kill her.

I laugh. "Don't worry" I said in between my chuckles. The entire court was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. And a pin did drop somewhere. "I'm not going to kill you"

Tears ran down her face. "Thank you, thank you, than—

Blood splatter her face as my hand pierces his man's chest. I snatched his heart and tear it out from its place. Brunette cries out in shock and delusion. I set the heart on fire and shove it to the man's mouth. Everyone watches as the man is consumed in flames. I let the polarity of the place shift to normal and the girl falls on her knees, crying and sobbing. What happened next was rather… uncomfortable to watch.

Brunette tried to kill the fire but this was no ordinary fire. This was _Sun Flames. _Fire burning so hot that it would melt your skin if you get too close to it, and she did. She screamed and rolled around trying to lessen the feeling of being burned. I try to help her but she wouldn't stop moving. I watched as her skin melted revealing white bones starting to turn black and charred from the intensity of the fire. I shake my head to regain my thoughts and walk away. The fire, if left unfed will die by itself, it won't spread across the floor anything like that, but it will eat away at its target until they've turned to ash. I return to the two who were sitting speechless in their seat. I touch them by the shoulders and teleport us out of the mall.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Haircut done. Groceries… check. A new shirt and pants… check. I cross out the last item on my list and walk back to Emily's home. I knock on the door and Auntie, just Auntie, greeted me. She's still laughing at the thought of me being a Conduit, so we don't show her anything we've found out about in the factory for the last three days. I could now _fast forward _time and create walls of impenetrable space around me. I enter the living room and see Emily, in her white blouse and my newly bought boxers sitting on the couch watching some news report in Seattle. _Bioterrorist kills three people _was the front line words. My mind quickly goes to Unknown, a god among Conduit because of his powers. My entire body shivers.

I give Auntie the groceries and sit beside Emily, she lays her head on my lap when I get in a comfortable position. We're not dating or anything, but we've grown close together in the last three days since the Seattle incident. We watch the footage of scene, I can see a young man and immediately I know it's Unknown, he has this aura of confidence around him. He's kneeling in front of a woman lying on the ground, he touches her shoulder and she starts to… disintegrate. It's just a surveillance video but I can hear in my head the screaming the woman was making as she disappeared from existence. I get a shiver when my thoughts went to me being able to do that with my Time Manipulation. The next thing was rather gruesome as he punctures a man's chest and yanks his heart out, sets it on fire and shoves it in his mouth setting him on fire. Emily turns and faces the ceiling. "I can turn it off" I said. She shakes her head. "Go watch it, know what you're going to be dealing with" she says. I turn my head again to the screen just as the other woman rolls on the ground, her mouth open, screaming. Her skin starts to melt revealing her bones. Unknown doesn't watch for long, instead he walks towards two familiar faces—Shadow and Light woman—he touches their shoulder then disappears into thin air.


	9. Chapter 9 - A Prologue to Nemesis

January 10, 2012. I'm with Emily at the factory training my rift teleportation when her phone buzzed in her pockets. She called a time out and went outside to answer the call. I keep practicing, I've finally controlled it enough to teleport another person aside from entering and reappearing on the specific destination. Earlier, Emily went through and appeared on the balcony above head. She even wanted me to open a rift to some place in Asia to really see how well I handled it. Of course, if I went by myself, I could easily move to any place in the world, but I'm not ready find out about putting someone else into the rift for that far. I'm scared that I might accidentally send them to the moon… or worse.

I'm sitting against the nearest column when she returns with a flustered look. She releases a huff and slams down beside me. "What got you so depressed?" I asked. She just shakes her head and then stand up again, clasping her hands like a mischievous little child.

"I'm in the mood for traveling, that's all" she says. She extends out a hand and I take it. I'm still not completely capable to teleporting two or more people at the same time through a rift but I still open one in front of us. Before, the rift was just barely visible, but now, you could see clearly the destination you were going to. It acted like a two way mirror, a passable two-way mirror. I step in and instantly appear on top of the Big Ben in London. I hear the rift make a sound and I turn to see Emily appearing right behind me. I'm surprised it didn't sent us to some other desolated place like before.

"London" she says under her breath. The snowy horizon was merged with the brown and grey color of the buildings. It looked serene but that façade only lasted a moment.

"What are you doing here and where'd you come from?" a voice in a heavy English accent asked from behind us.

We both jumped in surprise and all I could do was flare up my ability. I'm still not sure why my time manipulation isn't working properly, by properly mean stop time and heal injuries. We turn at the same time to see a young girl, probably eleven, staring at us and… hovering in the air a few inches from the floor.

"You're Conduits, too" she says excitedly. "Oh lovely! Just lovely!" she twirls in the air and floats towards us. She examines as she circles us. "What are your powers? Teleportation? Probably, because you just appeared out of nowhere, oh what's it like to teleport? Does it make you sick like sea-sickeness, or maybe—

"Can we get down from here?" Emily broke her constant questions. She nods vehemently and points towards a building rooftop leveled enough for us to stand properly without sliding over the edge. The top of Big Ben might've been _not _the worst of places to test my rift abilities but it certainly wasn't also the greatest.

"I live in that building with my brother, you guys can teleport there. No one will see us" she says before diving downwards unto the street. Whoever the girl was, she certainly looks like she was far more experienced in using her powers than me. I hold Emily's hand tight and I open a rift, I see the little girl appear from the edge of the rift, she's just landed on the rooftop. I take in a deep breath and walked through.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Brooke Augustine was furious at me. So furious that she threw me in a large Chromium plated room void of everything except for a bed and toilet. She knows I can get out through phasing but Chromium makes me nauseous after phasing. I try to develop any new power but this wasn't a threat worth escaping, I can't develop a new one. I sit on the foot of the bed, even the bed's made of chromium. I can use Polar Shifting to bend the door down or… oh yeah, Chromium also affects me in any power I use. I hate Chromium and its metallic smell that makes me scrunch up my nose. I lay on the bed, at least the mattress wasn't made of metal, too.

"I hope you'd learn to be more respectful to people who _don't _have powers. They can't defend themselves from you. No one can, but I at least hope you could at least give them a dime of your mercy" I hear her voice booming through the corridor as she walked away from the door of my room.

"I'll develop something from Chromium, Augustine. You'll see" I say. I know she can hear me, I'm projecting my threats to her mind. I already suddenly feel dizzy, like the walls were bouncing some of my powers back at me and that it was somehow making me sick.

I hear her footsteps become more silent until she's finally opened the door at the far end of the hall and exited to her own little Seattle Empire. _Emperor. _Yeah, that's what I should be called, Emperor. I should be the one ruling over Seattle, heck the world! I grow silent in the time I've spent pacing around the room, trying to facilitate my Adaptation Manipulation to work, but nothing seems to work against Chromium. I shake my head, trying to rid of the haziness that has taken over my mind, its clouded and all I can think of was to lay down and let it pass. I'll get out eventually, that or it'll be another whole month here in my Chromium cell.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

The little girl led us through a maze of halls covered in articulated wallpaper and a carpeted floor. These halls looked like they belong to those with money and as we walked further and further into the girl's home, I begin to suspect that they were rich; a number of paintings start to cover the walls, paintings of women, landscapes, fruits; all painted by famous artists like Picasso or Leonardo Da Vinci. She finally stops in front of a large wooden door, intricate designs riddled the surface creating patterns of spirals and thorns and waves. She turns to us with a smile. "This is my brother's room. He'll be delighted to meet you two" she says as she push opens the door.

The entire room was spotless. The marble floor shimmered against the fluorescent lights above, the walls were a dark wood, maybe maple or oak, bookshelves of books covered one side of the room and a bed against another, a large flat screen TV hanged on the wall opposite the bed and a burning fireplace was below it. In all my life I've only seen these kinds of rooms in old Victorian movies or rich mansions of celebrities. Never a Conduit.

A man, much older than me, stood in the center with welcoming arms. He seems to have seen our arrival because he had already prepared cups of tea and a platter of biscuits. "Welcome" he says with glee. He walks towards us and shakes our hand. A tiny jolt of electricity travels through my body when our hands touch, I look at Emily and I know she felt it, too. What was that just now? "I'm Seymour Jensen" he says as he ushers us to sit on lavishly designed couches. "You've already met my younger sister, Mariela" he says pointing a hand towards her where she gives a curt bow like old time women when introducing themselves.

"Ho—How did you know we were coming?" Emily asks him straightforwardly. I'm surprised that she could be so blunt at some points, but at least she asked the same thing I wanted to know.

Seymour gives off a hearty laugh. I notice he's rather… round. A large man, maybe around 25 of years with black-to-grey hair and bright green eyes. He's the oldest Conduit I know… except maybe the other one, the one that started this all. For a moment, I let my mind wonder to where that man is right now. My attention snaps back to the present when Seymour began to answer our question.

"Much like my sister, I too, am a Conduit" he says with pride. "I can see through the future and augment my chances of luck"

"Augment you luck?" Emily's voice seems doubtful.

"Yes. For say, I can take a person's luck and put it on myself to increase the chances of good things happening to me" he takes the platter of biscuits and pass it to us. We take a single piece. I take a bite and it's delicious. I take another piece.

Emily was quiet. She was too fascinated with what she was hearing to notice that she'd almost eaten all of the biscuits Seymour had intended to serve. "What exactly happens to the people you take your luck from?"

"Well…" he trails off. "They get bad luck for the duration of the day"

"I've never heard of Conduits who could take something from a pure… _aspect _of living" I'm surprised Emily could be this… smart, observing… intelligent.

"I, too, was surprised when I found about my Probability Manipulations but I think it's just a side effect of my real Conduit powers, Precognition"

I nod. I have given up on trying to question why was this man talking to us so casually, the suspicious glint in his eyes, in the sudden rise and low of his voice. I just listened and listened as he explained his past, his discovery of his power, the discovery of his _sister's _power and so on… he rubbed his hands together and I snapped out of my own fixation.

"I predicted you two would come here through your rift atop Big Ben" he says. "I sent out Mariela to fetch you because I want to tell you something grieve about our future"

"What?"

His mouth tightened into a firm line. He stroke his beard and exhaled a deep sigh. "There is an organization that is known to take Conduits and lock them in a _unruly _environment, yes?"

The D.U.P. I nod and he looks towards Emily. "She's not… a Conduit" I say.

Emily nodded to what I said and Seymour shook his head.

"There will be a time when the Conduits and Humans will exist in a prosperous peace. But I'm afraid that the time will never come unless this looming threat is dealt with" his voice had taken on a deeper tone, a depressed and saddened one. Maybe Fearful, too.

"There is a young man in Seattle" he starts. "His powers are slowly growing, rather becoming too _unstable _even for him. If he is undealt with, then he will grow to become a god amongst all of us, Conduits and men. I fear the war that will be upon us in the near future, where his forces will clash with another, a hero's tale will be born from the ashes of this conflict" he says it like it came from an old prophecy. He seems to notice what I just thought about and gave a hearty laugh. "Sorry, I start to talk in an old English kind of way once I start to recite my visions. I'm a historical literature professor, you see"

I shake my head. "I'm sorry if I was rude"

"No, no. Not at all. Some of my students would even sleep through my entire lecture because of my manner of speaking" his eyes stayed at a fixed point behind me and I thought about what he had said. The fight between two forces… mine and… Unknown's? Probably. He's the only one in Seattle who's both powerful and crazy enough to wage war.

"Anyways, I've yet to learn of your names" he says. "I'd look it up in the future but that'll just be rude, right?"

"I'm Emily" she starts. "And this is…"

"Lee" I said. I've already told Emily this truth in the factory. There was nothing else I could do, I mean who would stop her from looking at the D.U.P website of its most wanted Conduits and find out Temporal's real name is Lee Schneider? No one. Certainly not me.

"Lee" he looks at me then to her. "Emily, it is nice to have met your acquaintance but I'm afraid our time is cut short. They are coming"

"What? Who are?" I asked, suddenly I was standing up readying myself to fight.

"The British branch of the D.U.P and their… Conduit puppets" he stood up and walked away from us. "I'll be more of a help if I was safe in my home. Mariela will help you deal with them outside" he says.

I'm taken by surprise to find out that this little girl has had her fair share of fighting off the D.U.P. She looks at me with a hard look in her eyes, she's ready… always has been. She leads us out into a large foyer on the first floor. It's a wide open space leading out into the street where a couple of black trucks and vans had already parked, closing off the entire street. Men in blue D.U.P uniforms and heavy army vests appear from the corner of my vision. They've already surrounded us. Two men wearing normal clothing stood in front of us. They must be the Conduit puppets Seymour was talking about. One of them had blond hair tied into a ponytail that swayed down to his back; the other one had jet black hair gelled and was cut short.

"Hey Trevor, you get the guy and I get the girl" Jet Black said to his partner while looking at Emily.

I create a wall of impenetrable space around her. I turn to her. "Whatever happens to me, don't step out of the field" she nods. I turn to Mariela and she's already hovering in the air. This garners a whistle from Ponytail but he doesn't get to say anything else because she was already diving for him. Ponytail retaliates by pulling out the rubber band that tied his hair. At first I didn't understand what he was doing until his hair started to twist and forms shapes and even grow longer. That's… a _girly_ power. His hair becomes a webbing and Mariela has a hard time evading them. If only I could use time again. I try to concentrate, I feel it moving slower and I know somehow, I was able to use my time powers… for now. I open my eyes just in time to see Jet Black's fist coming right for me in a _very _slow manner. I easily dodge it and send an uppercut to catch him off guard. Time moves normal and he stumbles a few steps back… into nothing. He's literally disappearing like a ripple of water, his body starts to liquefy and turn into a pool of water.

The pool of water shoots out towards me and time slows again for me to move just fast enough to dodge it. It hits the far wall of a building behind me in a large splash. It spirals into one large pool of water and proceeds to go at me again. I easily maneuver around the place evading every move the puddle makes. I'm actually getting tired after my twentieth time of dodging the water. I run towards the other side of the street and wait for it to move. It swirls into one large pool and then into what looks like a harpoon aimed directly at me. Behind it, I see Emily with a scared and concerned face. I mouth her to not worry and she just closes her eyes holding her hands tight in front of her chest. The water harpoon shoots at me at an incredibly fast speed but thanks to my time manipulation, I easily slow time enough to create a sphere cage around it made of pure space, distorted. It slams into the invisible wall and becomes a gush of water. The pool, now hanging about the ground, starts to mold back into a solid form, Jet Black was punching at the air trying to break free from the space cage I made for him.

"Hey!" he shouts pounding his fist on the air in front of him. "Get me down from here!" he hisses as he trashed around more. I turn to see Mariela had dealt with Ponytail, she tied him with his own hair and even gave him a new hairstyle for that matter. She was giggling when she touched down beside me.

"What about the Soldiers?" I asked.

"No one except these two" she says. "We should get back to Seymour"

"I agree but…" I say turning my attention to Jet Black. "What do we do with him?"

Mariela looks at me for a moment before shrugging. "Bring him a long then. The more the merrier, right?"


	10. Chapter 10 - Nemesis

Three hours in and I'm already going crazy. I can't use my powers, I can't do but sit or lay in this small cell and the reflections the Chromium walls left had started to affect my way of understanding what was right, left up and down. I've spent the last hour pacing around. I've got nothing to do and I'm sure it's been more than three hours since I've been here. I hear faint footsteps from behind the entrance wall. I place my eyes against the cool surface of the wall and try as hard to listen in.

"…Nemesis… Lehm's condition…" the voice came too blurred but I know it was Augustine's. I feel the wall rumble and shake, I back away as it slides open upward revealing the natural light of the setting sun behind Brooke Augustine. A woman with reddish-brown hair, and a nasty frowned mouth to go along her icy brown eyes that seems to pierce anyone's soul like knife through melting butter. "Ah, good to see you've not fallen asleep. I've reconsidered your thirty day isolation and moved it for next month" she says with a lighter tone to her voice, like she was actually happy.

"What do you want in return?" I ask her. "You always want something in return"

"No, no. Not this time, I just hope you've learnt your lesson about _normal _people and the things they go through see others being burnt to ash or disintegrated" she walked in front of me, her hands behind her. She liked to walk like that since I met her, trying to be big and powerful. I could easily kill her if I wanted to but… where do I go after that? Hunter and Blair, what about them? They're the only family I've had since I was abandoned long ago by some rich people that once called themselves my _parents. _I've lived with the D.U.P since I was fifteen and it's been six years since then. I've got nowhere to run to, I can always fight, but... what would I become by then?

I clear my head of thoughts and continue walking until we reached the main doors of the D.U.P HQ. It's a large spire, towered with six other forming a hexagon around its concrete body. It sat on the river beside Seattle and all of the city… if you look in the right angle, could be in the palm of your hands. She leads me into a large room, lights hanging high above us, a glass window running against one of the wall and a large ominous looking pod sitting on the middle of the room where spotlights seems to be pointed towards it. Another locking experiment.

"It's not what you think, Lehm" she says. "We're not here to lock you up, we've done that before and we failed… many times"

"So what's that in the middle of the room?" I ask. I look around and see people on the other side of the windowed wall. They're talking to each other, sitting on chairs facing us, Augustine walks towards a metal door next to the window. I get the feeling I'm not supposed to follow her. I stay put and try to make sense of my surroundings. It's big, spaciously larger than any indoor buildings I've ever been in. Lights hang above us, large crates of metal and wood are strewn all over the place, I have a feeling this is a training room. I turn just in time to see Augustine behind the sliding metal door. She appears a moment later on the other side of the window. She leans over, what I guess, is a control panel and presses a button. The speakers flare up with her icy cold voice.

"We tried to lock you up before, Lehm. But now, after several failed tests and experiments, we've come to believe that the only way to stop you completely is to _kill _you" her voice doesn't falter, she continued. "Hunter and Blair aren't here because they didn't want to see you die, so put that in your mind, that at least two people don't _want _you to die" the speakers, the soft crackles they created was left. She had shut off the speakers and I stood in silence trying not to laugh at the thought, they really think they could kill me?

"You're— you're joking, right?" I say laughing. "Alright, for the sake of training a bunch of newbie soldiers, I'll lessen the impacts of my punches"

I'm still laughing when the pod released steam as it popped open to reveal a young woman. She's fairly my age, light-toned and long glossy gray hair. A bandana wrapped around her eyes. She wore a long flowing night gown, she's beautiful to look at but the instant she moved I suddenly felt a rush of fear. Something's wrong with her. I back away.

"Lehm, I want you to meet Nemesis" her voice returned. I turn to see that the glass window was gone and was replaced by metal much like the other walls. They don't seem to be made of Chromium, which is something to lessen my worries. "She's the very first android produced by the D.U.P to stop Conduits like you. Another is in production for Lee Schneider but I'm afraid you won't see the day that his Nemesis captures him. For you…" she stops. I hear faint shouting in the back, Blair's voice boomed into the large room.

"Lehm! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone with this! Nemesis—No, get away from me— she's— you need to run, don't fight it!" there was a long screech of the mike being dragged, a scream, shouting and gunfire. Something's happening but I'm too preoccupied by what she had said. An android with the power to adapt like me? Impossible… and yet her fist hitting me in the gut felt _real. _I slam against the metal wall, my entire body already aching from the pain of one single punch. Fuck.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Seymour was waiting when we came back with Jet Black, who introduced himself as Edgar James, still in his sphere cage. Seymour happily greeted back, he says a few things to Mariela and she nods before leaving us four to be alone in his room.

"I had another premonition" he says. His voice was as grim as ever. "The future is changing"

"Isn't that what the future always does?" Emily says as she takes a seat on one of the couches.

Seymour shook his head. "The future is at a constant change but not like this." He takes a seat in front of us, in one of his single seated couches that becomes a recliner. "This... future is _dark. _I can't see anything at all"

"What do you mean?"

"Hey! Get me down from here!" Edgar tries to kick the air again and I let him fall on the ground. Thankfully the soft carpet broke his fall.

"If you so try to turn to water, I'll put you in a smaller space than that one" I threat. He looks at me, grumbles then takes a corner of the room where he stood and leaned against the wall.

"I haven't told you the full extent of my power" he says. "I… I can only see what my future self can. That's why I didn't join you in fighting Edgar and his companion because I saw myself getting in your way and in turn, making you lose the fight" he says. I just noticed how he would rub the back side of his hand when he was nervous about something. "Normally, I see the world in different realities, sort of… alternate futures that depends on the outcome of variables in the present time"

"I don't get it, Seymour, you said you didn't _saw _anything" I said. The heaviness of the words settled after I had said them. Did he die? "Did you… you know?"

He shook his head. "No, I did not die but instead, I literally saw only darkness. We, the Conduits were captured and thrown into large windowless cells by… other Conduits. More powerful Conduits" he says. I hear Edgar shuffle and I turn to see him walk towards us with a grin.

"The D.U.P will always win in the—

"The D.U.P's been disbanded by this point" Seymour interjected. "These Conduits were the byproduct of the D.U.P trying to rid of the one who would have caused the war" he says. For a moment I felt relieved that my whole future wouldn't become messy but then again… who were these new Conduits? "So they tried to _create _more Conduits to battle us. But in the end, this destroyed them and killed nearly two-thirds of the world population"

"Seymour, what you're saying is… it can't be real, right?" Emily's voice seemed so fragile, so afraid. I wanted to scoot over to her and wrap my arms around her and say convincing words of courage, but I can't.

Seymour was about to say something when I, he and even Edgar felt it. A wave of fear. Fear indescribable, it was like… like I was thrown into a pit of my worst nightmares. I felt a cold wind run against the back of my spine and I shuddered. I see Seymour and Edgar had also felt that fear. That uncertain cold wind running through the back of their spine.

We hear Mariela scream from behind the door and Seymour, surprisingly, moved swiftly towards the door and threw it open. I see Mariela hunched on the floor, shaking and afraid. She was crying, sobbing nonstop. Whatever that wave was, I'm sure every Conduit out there felt it, I just know everyone did, it carried scents of fear from different people, a myriad of images. And atop those images, I saw the face of a young woman, her eyes covered by a black bandana. I shiver when I try to recall her face. Seymour cradled Mariela in his arms and excused himself to take her to her bedroom. Edgar was slowly backing away from us trying to run. I shackle his feet to the ground by 'hardening' the space around his feet and he falls backwards with a loud thud.

"Don't try to run" I said.

"Fuck you! I need to worn Mikey about the thing that guy saw… fuck this! I need to get away from the lots of you!" he tries to raise his feet from the floor but they're stuck there.

"I can cut off your feet right now and throw them in the Pacific Ocean" I said, never realizing until now how… _evil _I sounded. What has being a Conduit done to me? I feel warm hands wrap around mine and I turn to see Emily.

"Don't force yourself to do something you'd regret later on" she says. I look into her eyes, her beautiful hazel eyes. I briefly nod and release Edgar from the floor. He turns into liquid and seeps into the crevices of the floor boards.

"You did the right thing letting him go. He doesn't need to be involved in this" she says.

"Emily" I start looking around the room. The fire from the fireplace had dwindled to a low burn. "Every Conduit will be involved if we don't stop whatever it is coming for us"

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Metal? No. Gravity? No. Magma? No. Every power I had was being overturned by this thing. The more time I spent trying to destroy it, the more it becomes more power than me. I'm beginning to think that it has the same power as I have. I need to run away. Find a good place to be safe and try it from there. I duck under a punch and tackle it to the ground. It pulls its knees towards its chest and kicks me in the chest. I go flying through the air and slam against the ceiling sending bits and piece of concrete falling towards the ground like snow. I open my eyes just in time to see it flying towards me. I phase through her and I had just enough energy to do that. My Hyper Healing had kicked up the first injury I got and has been using a lot of my energy since then just trying to keep me on both feet.

It turns a 180 degrees and plummets down towards me, it's right arm, a large silver—Chromium—sword. She slashes forward and I had enough strength to phase through the initial sweep but the sudden twisting feeling in my stomach made me solid again, making me get hit by her kick and sent flying to one of the walls. It hurts. My entire body was screaming from the pain, my Hyper Healing has finally failed me and all I could do was get up on my knees. I watch as it zooms towards me, its hand turning into a sword once more. I closed my eyes thinking what I could have done to stop it but every single thought of action… overturned against me. I was done. Kaput…Teleportation! Damn, I was so fixated on fighting it that I had forgotten I could easily escape her. I open my eyes just as the sword was to pierce my left eye and I easily disappeared and reappeared in behind her, a few good yards away. It looked surprised… no, rather it looked like it was _calculating. _It was an android, after all.

I was about to teleport, It—Nemesis, as Augustine called it—turned towards me. I see its heels slightly adjust themselves, forming silver like tubes extending outwards behind her. Her feet were covered in a Chromium plated shoes that somehow gave her the ability to float a few inches above the floor. It was charging right for me when the metal doors Augustine went through earlier slid open. A lone figure was running towards me, her hair flowing behind her, blood ran down her face. Blair.

"Lehm!" she shouts and becomes a figure of light moving faster than Nemesis itself. She reaches me while Nemesis was a good ten yards or so away. "I'm sorry" she says. I turn to see Nemesis was right in front of us. I closed my eyes and hoped that I would be able to open them again…

The wind was blowing hard against my body. I held Blair in my arms, holding her in a tight embrace. I open my eyes to see we were not in the large training room of the D.U.P Headquarters. We were… we were in Chicago. My birthplace, the city of my Past.

**Author here: sorry if this chapter was rather "short" I'm planning on a Unknown/Emperor-centered chapter next to finally bring out the truth of what he really is. Also, what do you guys think about Nemesis? She's based on the Greek Mythology figure. She's-rather, it-will be making a lot of appearances from now on. Stay tune for the upcoming war.**


	11. Chapter 11 - The Chicago Incident

I was kneeling in the center of a busy intersection, holding Blair in my arms. The Hancock Center loomed behind us, casting its shadows unto us as the sun sets in the distance. The next thing I noticed were the honking of the cars. They're all blaring for us to move out of their way. "Blair" I said looking around looking at the people who stared back at us in the pavements and in the shops and restaurants that lines the streets. "Blair? Look! We're safe from that thing" I give her a light shake thinking she had fallen unconscious. "Blair?" I look down and see blood running form the corner of her mouth. "Blair?!" I shout. I look down at her, Nemesis' sword was plunged deep in her side. There was blood everywhere. No! No! No! This… this wasn't supposed to happen! I was deafened by my own screaming, people had come out of their cars and even from the buildings to look at the commotion. One of the civilians, a rough looking man walked, straddled, towards us shouting for us to move away. But can't he see? Blair's dead. She can't stand up for herself. She's… she's gone. And it's all because of me. The man was a few steps away when he drew out his gun. He cocks it but I send him flying through a flower shop a block away.

"Le—Lehm" her voice snapped me out of my furry. I look down and see her, her eyes staring up at me. "Do—don't do this—" she coughed, more blood spewing from her mouth.

"Don't talk" I say to her. I turn to the crowd. I can't develop any powers. I'm… I'm helpless for the first time in a _very _long time. "Someone get help! She's bleeding to death!" I shouted but no one moved. They knew I was a Conduit. "God damn it!" I shouted as I try to stand up. My knees buckled and shook but I held strong and took the first few steps when a large chunk of a brick hits me in the back of my head.

"You freak!" shouted one of them. Another object flung towards me, a broken piece of a bottle, but I easily dodge it. There was a chorus of angry shouting now, they were screaming for me to go back to where I came from, to just die, and to just disappear. Can't they see that Blair's dying? She need help, Conduit or Human, anyone should help out if they see someone dying, right?! _Kill them all. _What? For a moment, I thought I heard my own mind saying me to—_they deserve to die, all of them—_no. I'm not that kind of a monster, right? I mean, I've killed before but they were all for good reasons, one way or another, I helped this world rid one of its problems one person at a time. I never killed for pleasure. _What about that woman in the mall? You just let her melt away, right? _I shake my head and dodge another object being thrown at me. They were hissing, shouting, screaming and seem to get closer… they're going to attack me and Blair's going to—Oh no! I can't feel her breathing.

"She's dying!" I scream back. "Can't you see that?!" I turned in a circle and everyone moved a step back. "Just…" I can feel tears flowing from my eyes. Tears. I've never felt them on my face since… since in a long time. "Please, save her"

"We don't give a fuck about Conduits. You can just do what your friends doing and just die" this came from another man amongst the crowd. I send him flying to one of the large antennae's on the nearby building and drop him on the sharpest one I think would kill him. They need to rot in hell. All of them. But… Blair. She looked up to me like I was an angel. A savior and all I did was throw all those things away. I didn't mean to kill that guy or the guy before him. I'm just… I'm just…

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

_July 2009. I was walking down the street, the Scotts siblings on both my sides. Blair was walking with a smile on her face, she should be happy. Me and Hunter had just spent out money on buying her things because of the debt we had with her. "You know, you two should always let me handle you assignments so I can have more dresses added to my collection" she says with a big grin on her face. I grunted, wanting to buy parts for a better PC model with that money and Hunter said something stupid which garnered him being hit with a beam of light._

_This was our lives back then. A normal trio of young adults trying to live by being puppets to a government agency dealing with the likes of our own race. We were Conduit Hunters and we lived by a code of brothers-and-sister. We lived in a time where Brooke Augustine treated us as her children, her own flesh and blood. We, having been thrown away by our parents, needed the guidance of a mother and she took on that responsibility and raised us as her own. We lived a normal life… well, as normal as it can get for a Conduit Hunter._

In those fleeting moments, I remembered who Blair Scott was. She was my sister, my friend and my family. And now… she was dying in my arms as people threw their trash at us. A rush of different emotions entered me; anger, sadness, guilt, pain… fear. I shook my head trying to call out what energy I had left to teleport us to a hospital. I try to but I can't. I'm useless now. I feel the strength drain from my knees and I fall to the ground. I still held Blair in my arms. I lowered my head and our foreheads touched. I was sobbing, trying to whisper _I'm sorry _to her. I know she can still hear me. I want her to know how much I adored and respected her… how much I _loved _her. All this foolish people around us only makes me angrier at the fact that I was helpless to do anything, they stood close to us, creeping closer, any moment they could pounce and yet I was weak to be a victim. I hated this feeling when I was _normal _and I hated this feeling when I faced Nemesis.

Nemesis. She's the whole reason Blair died. She's the whole fucking reason I loved dies in my arms. I will get my revenge on her. I feel and hear feet shuffling closer. "Get away from me" I shout. A moment of bliss. There was a moment of bliss, my entire body felt light. A new power was emerging. I feel the tingling sensation in my fingertips towards the entirety of my body… I could… I could generate various forms of disasters. This was my new power. The people have surrounded us in a tight circle. I cried out for anything to happen and for a moment I thought I had hallucinated the effects on my body. Then the ground shook.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

We returned to Clifton around six in the evening. Turns out, Seymour hadn't had anything else to say and after a quick grab at the local Subway, I opened up a rift and jump through it with Emily. We appeared near Lake Michigan, the sun was a large red circle dipping into the horizon. I feel Emily tug my arm and I turn to her. "We have a scary future ahead of us" she says.

"_Us?_" I asked with a lifted brow. She nods, her eyes never leaving the sunset.

"I love you, Lee" she whispers. I let my hand glide down her arm and find her hand. I hold it tight in mine and I spin her towards me. I pulled her in and our lips touched.

"I love you, too"

We could have spent the entire day there watching each other watch the sunset, but the sudden tremor shook us beneath us sent us falling on our asses. Emily was suddenly surprised and scarred. I hold her tight as the shaking intensifies. Car horns blared in the town, dogs barking and the occasional sound of a tree lumbering down and snapping in segments in the surrounding forest of Clifton. The shaking hadn't stopped and it has been pass over a minute, any longer and buildings would begin to collapse if the shaking remained this strong. I try to stand up and balance myself on my feet and try to hold out a hand to Emily. She shakes her head. "No, it's safe here, there's nothing to fall down on me, you should check if people are safe in the town" she says. I take a second to weigh the chances and nod. She is safer here.

"Stay still and wait for me here" I say before turning towards the town in a run.

Clifton was in the process of being a ruined location. The walls of the buildings were cracking sending legs of broken cement and wood upwards until the entire building was split in half, people were running around screaming and flailing their arms over their heads trying to fling whatever small pieces of cement that falls on top of them. A child was crying in the corner, her father laid unconscious, a rock with blood was next to his head. I feel my stomach grind and swirl. I need to rescue these people. I trust that my time powers have returned? I slow down time for everyone and get to work. I first get to the girl and her father, I check for a pulse and dread of the thought but I felt it, he was alive but barely. I lift him up and run towards the edge of the town and place him softly on the grass, I run back to the girl and carry her, she's crying but I get her to stop her after saying words of encouragement. I reach the spot where her father laid and I sat her next to him.

"Hey, there" I say. "What's your name?"

"A—A—Abigail" she says clearing her eyes of tears. "My—my—my daddy, he's—he's…"

"He's fine, Abigail, but he needs someone to watch over him, okay?" I say. "Stay put here and watch over daddy"

She nods and I feel a rush of relief that she's not crying anymore. The shaking has stopped but the buildings were still crumbling all around the town. I don't have time to go in and out of the town on my feet. I need to use my rifts. I open a rift and jump through. I see three men huddled on the corner of the local pub and I run towards them. "Hold my hand" I said. They look at me for a dazed moment before taking it. I lead them through the rift and they appear just a few yards from Abigail and her father. The men sees her and they rush to help her dad. I hope they know what they're doing. I open another rift and go through it.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Yes. They should run. That's what humans are good at when faced with something out of their hands. The earthquake might have been overkill but at least I was alone. I hear metal bend and snap in the distance and all around me cars slammed against each other, people were crushed under the slabs of concrete falling from the sides of buildings. All the time they ran, I sat in the center of it all, holding Blair's still-warm body tight and close to my chest. This didn't have to end like this. If they had helped… then they'd be safe and… no, the need to pay. People need to pay for their ignorance. The world of my past shatter and collapsed all around me, the people who once treated me like shit were finally paying their dues.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

_August 2003. My mother and father were talking to some cops. It was the first time I ever seen myself create balls of… well, magma. I was afraid because of this stray dog had started to bark at me when I accidentally wandered into a lonely and abandoned alleyway on my way from school. It flashed its teeth at me when I got close. It was barking before I knew it and I was already backing away but it kept getting closer and closer and… my hands were suddenly burning, well, molting actually. Magma were pouring out from the skin of my hands. I would have screamed and shouted and ran but seeing my hands covered in thick molten earth, I was rather… curious. I played with the magma that didn't even burnt the clothes on my skin. I watched as the dog suddenly change and from barking it became a whimpering piece of garbage. I throw a ball of magma in front of it and it yelps and run away. I don't want to kill anything but I will if they threaten me._

_When I got home, my hands were still secreting magma and all over I went, a trail of molten earth singes everything around it. My father was surprised to see me and my… magma hands. He didn't let me enter the house and I willing sat on the steps of our small brownstone apartment. I thought he was just looking out for the house, I mean, I might accidentally burn it all down. So I sat and waited… and waited… and waited. Until the cops came and a few vans with the letters _D.U.P _on the side. They tried to take me away, the men in the D.U.P suits and all I could do was trash around, magma went flying everywhere. My mother tried to cox me into going with the D.U.P but… I wanted to go home, I wanted to be with them._

_One of the men grabbed me by the shoulder and that was when my second power activated. _Telekinesis. _I sent him flying against one of the vans. It screeched a hollow metal wail as it fell on its side with a loud boom and a thud. The men pointed their guns and my parents back away. I was still trying to get to them, to hug them and when I finally got out from the clutches of the D.U.P and police officers, I was kicked by my father. I feel back on my ass and for a moment I didn't cry, I wondered… _why? _"We don't want you anymore!" he shouted at me. Tears welled up and I was crying before I knew it. My mother tried to shout at me but she couldn't. She loves me, still. But my father, he was different. He pulled my mother into our—_their—_apartment and when he finally did, he slammed the door shut, leaving me behind. By the time the D.U.P had me in their cuffs and in the van, I wasn't crying anymore. I was filled… resentment. I was angry at everyone; the dog, the cops, the D.U.P, my dad. I hated everyone but… I had nowhere else to go… and if I do run away from these people, where would I go?_

_September 2003. My new family, Hunter and Blair… and even a younger Augustine, stood beside me as they toured me around the new base Augustine had created in Seattle, she said this was going to be our new home, our new beginning. I found their presence a cover to the ache in my heart for my mother. I still wanted to be beside her and not these people… because I wasn't like them. Confident, strong and powerful. I wasn't any of those. I was a crybaby who wanted to go home and be with his mother. I wanted to be left alone by the world of _Conduits _and all that shit. I wanted none of this._

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

I finished getting everyone out of the town before some of the buildings caved in. we watched in horror as the town that was once Clifton become a pile of rubble. Auntie sat beside Emily near the lake, Abigail was beside her father, who had now received medical treatment from the men I rescued earlier. No one's saying the fact that they were saved by a Conduit and even Auntie didn't give a shit if I was a Conduit because she pulled me into a hug when the shaking and the most horrible ordeal of Clifton had passed. Everyone was silent when the relief rescuers came and started to aid the people. They didn't said a pip about the Conduit amongst them. I was grateful for that.

Emily came towards me and I pulled her for a hug. Something big has happened and this earthquake, this wasn't naturally made, this was the release of anger, this was made by someone, a Conduit. I fear that it may be the new Conduits Seymour was talking about and the blood seemed to rush out of my face because Emily tug on my arm and I turn to her. "You look paler than… snow white" she tries to stifle a laugh. She's trying her best to comfort herself. I pull her for a hug as we watch the last few seconds of the sun before it finally submerges into the horizon. I tell her that it's going to be okay… but, I'm not really sure about that.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

The ruins of Chicago looked peaceful at night, if you could tolerate the cries of people trapped under rubble and debris. I finally snapped out of my delusions and started to lift the large piece of concrete and throw them at the lake with my telekinesis. I laid Blair on a concrete slab next to me as I continued to help the rescue workers find still alive people buried under so much destruction and death. I realize that it's not the humans' fault, it's all because of Augustine, because of her and that wretched Nemesis. I will get my revenge. In that sudden spurt of anger the concrete I was holding with my telekinesis splits in two and I threw them farther into the lake. I'll clean the lake once this whole issue with Augustine's finally blown over. I turn to see Blair's body, no one came fast enough to help her, but I'm grateful for the rescue worker woman who tried to do everything she could to bring her back, she even talked to me for over a half hour about cope with the stress and the depression the death of a loved one brings. I thank her for that, and in a way, she's the reason why I'm helping them rescue people.

I lift another large piece of concrete and metal. Another survivor. Another piece. A dead body. It was like playing Russian roulette, only this time, the bullets were people and you'd actually be happy to find a live one than a dead one. I felt cold, not because of the sudden falling of the snow, but because I let my power run amok and kill millions of innocent lives. I'm a monster, I've known that since my parents threw me away, but I've only realized now how dangerous this power is and how truly a monster I was.

January 11, 2012. I buried Blair near a large single Oak tree in a peaceful town I passed a few miles from Chicago. The town was well south and didn't seemed heavily affected by the earthquake. I laid her there to finally rest. I cried the whole night I dug up, with my hands and a shovel, her grave. I created a coffin of sorts from the pieces of metal and concrete I picked up from Chicago. This was the best I could do for her. I laid her on her coffin after cleaning up her face, she looked like she was just asleep but I know she was gone. Truly gone.

I found myself looking in the mirror of an abandoned house at the edge of the town I never bothered to check the name. I needed to change my appearance, I focus on trying to call out one of my dormant powers, a power I rarely used. If I could still somehow—I can feel it, Nemesis was coming. I don't think she's headed for this town but rather to investigate Chicago. I threw away her sword in the lake so if she ever wants her hand back, she'll have to go for a swim to get it. I try to bring myself back to look at the mirror and try to _morph _my image. I've already done this before. My irises weren't always purple, they were a rich shade of blue before but I got bored of it and changed it after I developed one of my powers during a chase with this Conduit who could create cybernetic monster out of piece of metal. I had to hide from them and the best power I developed was to change my appearance.

I finally give up when I couldn't sum up the power anymore. That's the whole drawback with Adaptation Manipulation, if I don't use the power that often, it'll cease to exist. I pace around the room before I got the brilliant—at the time—idea to buy hair dye and a pair of sunglasses. If I was going to be on the run, then I had to go change who I am.

**Author here: I hope you guys enjoyed this one. I've been planning on writing this since the whole idea of Nemesis. I felt that Lehm had become overpowered and he needed to find his place in this world, and I thought the best way was for him to experience True Fear and Loss. So, I hope I achieved those and that Lehm will change for the better but you never know...**

**Also, I'll be on a Hiatus for a little while. I'll be posting the next chapter on Saturday or maybe Sunday. I've got a big test coming up and I need to prepare for it. (Nobody ever said Engineering would be such a pain in the arse!)**


	12. Chapter 12 - A Prologue to Retribution

January 22, 2012. _The Chicago Incident. _The news front page read aloud. I flip through the newspaper just as Emily was waking up. We've had a rough week, finding a place to stay in was the biggest obstacle and then finding a job to support that place was another. He continued to read the paper as she settled in on the chair across from him, Auntie was busy preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

_For still unknown reasons, the Earthquake that had killed several thousands of people in the city of Chicago are still baffling Geologists. The sudden occurrence of such a powerful earthquake has left the once beautiful city into a pile of debris and rubble. _

"Stop reading that" she says as she leans in on the table and grabs the paper from my hands. "This was printed over a week ago and you're still staring at it" she says. "I've seen you during the middle of the night, Lee"

I must confess, during the times we had looked for a house, Emily and I had grown close to each other that we… that we had done things let's just say Auntie wouldn't be proud of her. I watched her chest expand and recess as we wait for Auntie to finish up breakfast. "I've been thinking of going back to London" I said. Her head turns from the view of the window towards me.

"Then go" she says. "I'll be here when you get back"

I look at her and nod. "I love you"

She smiles. "You, too"

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Seymour was already at the café when I arrived back in London. I had sent him an email a few hours ago to meet up with me on the nearest café to his apartment. Mariela was sitting beside him eating biscuits and cake when I arrived. "Lee" he stand up and extends an arm out. I shake it and sit across him. "Terrible news, really" he says talking about Chicago. "Us here in the UK are in deep condolences to the people of the USA"

"No need for that Seymour" I say. "I'm here to talk about those Conduits the D.U.P created"

His mouth forms into a firm straight line. He sighs and finally picks up his cup of coffee and takes a sip from it. "What do you want to know?"

"Is there any way you could find out if they were the ones who created the Earthquake in Chicago?"

"Hmm" he strokes his beard looking at his cup. The ripple slowly dies into a calm surface of murky coffee. "I can't help you with seeing the past" he says. My thoughts had already told me that. "But…" he seems hesitant to tell me a piece of information. Our eyes meet, mine of eagerness and his of doubt. "I can help you with… your powers"

"What?"

"I can pass my precognition to someone for temporary purposes" he says. "But with permanent effects" he sighs deeply and then takes something out of his jacket's pocket. It was a small little cylinder tube with a small crystal of some sorts inside, floating in the middle. "This… is called a Conductance Transference Device. It was shown to me by my future self, how it was made, how it worked and how I could recreate it with today's technology"

"When I first got my premonition of the device, it looked as if it was being used by those Conduits created by the D.U.P and were using it to drain the powers from their captured victims, where they store their powers… I don't know. But what I do know is that my future self was able to get this and create a blueprint for me to follow"

"How does it work?" I ask taking it away from his fingers with care. I study the tube, it was small, the same length as a pencil unsharpened and as thick as a bubble tea straw. The crystal inside is somewhat emitting a low glow and I could hear a faint hum coming from it.

"Two Conduits must touch it the same time at both ends. The one transferring his powers holds the tip…" he points at an end that had a cone ending. "And the one being given the power to on the other" he points to the other end where it looks like there are indentations in the surface that looked like a hollowed circle. "Although… we should do it somewhere there aren't people around to see two men suddenly having seizures" he takes the CDT by the middle and carefully puts it back inside his pockets.

"Do you carry that thing around you always or…?" I trailed off, suddenly realizing the answer to my question. Of course, he already knew that the conversation would end up with me wanting more power to defeat whatever was coming my way—our way.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

We decided to go back to his apartment. Mariela flies off to who-knows-where, she's already so carefree for such a young age. I think she's more outgoing than I am, of course she isn't an introvert. I shake my head trying to get the clouding thoughts from what I was really wanting to question myself: What did I need power to begin with? Aren't what I already have enough?

We entered a spacious living room complete with lavish furniture and decorated with paintings and portraits of who I believe were Seymour and Mariela's relatives. He stands in the middle of the room and takes out the CDT. He holds out the indented end at me and for a moment I hesitated. I didn't want to touch it. "Go ahead, only a little shaking and maybe… blacking out but nothing serious"

I look at him one last time before touching the cylinder. It felt cool to the touch, I could feel a tingling sensation from the tips of my fingers, I want to yank my hand away but it's stuck like I've lost my control over it. My hand suddenly feel heavy, my entire body does! I can't move any part, even my eyeballs from looking left and right, I was entirely stuck. For a moment I started to panic, I need to get away from this—

Darkness swallowed me before I could understand what was happening.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Blonde hair, Sunglasses and a few tattoo later, I was someone new. I was James Jensen, a college student travelling the different states for a thesis project. I wandered around the small town of… Valve, I think that what's it's called, and found a good place to stay in for the night. It was a little run down motel but the prices were cheap enough for me to rent a room for a week. I lay on my bed for the rest of first day I'm here in Valve but… what kind of name is that?! I try to get rid of useless thoughts and try to make up a solid plan in hitting Nemesis and Augustine where it hurts but… everything goes back to Blair. Her blonde hair swaying in the wind, her hazel eyes shimmering like amber against the sun's rays. I feel a tear run down the side of my face I turn away from the ceiling and stand up. I need to get out of this place. I walk to the bathroom and… am I getting fat? I'm not that toned anymore, ever since I was attacked by Nemesis and lost Blair—Stop thinking about her! I clenched my fist and punched the mirror. It shatters into a million pieces. I look at my hand, shards were sticking out from the skin as blood dripped unto the floor tiles. I watched as my Hyper Healing kicks in and pushes out the shards out of my hand, they fall to the floor covered in blood. The gashes begin to close and a few seconds later, it was as if nothing had happen.

"Shit" I mutter as I try to pick up the pieces of glass. "I should have developed something that fixes things like this"

There was a knock on the door and I immediately turn into a battle stance. Morph the glass into a long blade. I forgot I had Glass Manipulation. The shards of glass twists and turns and bends to become one long blade. I grip the handle, it's not sharp at all.

"Hey, I heard something break, is everything alright?" a voice called out from behind the door. It sounded male and instantly I dropped my guard down. I throw the glass blade in the tub and walk towards the door. I open it and this young man is standing in front of me. His eyes grew wide for a moment and then he whistles. "Didn't know there were models in this motel"

For a moment I was surprised to hear this from him until I look down and see I was shitless. I'm not being arrogant and all but, he's right, I had trained my body and mind since I was under Augustine's wing. "Sorry about the sound. Just some bottle that I accidentally dropped, are you renting the next door?" I say.

He nods, his eyes were still sizing me up. I feel… exposed all of a sudden. "Well" he says. "I should get going" he scratches the back of his before walking off. I sigh, I should get out of this place. I'm gaining too much attention from the eyes of people here in Valve. I make a mental note to leave tonight but for now, after grabbing a clean white shirt, I head out to find anything about Nemesis and the latest news with the D.U.P.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

The war had begun. Mariela, or an older future version of her, flies up towards the sky to meet another Conduit who was already above us, they fly towards the direction of a tall tower in the distance. I see as hooded figure a few yards from me, he flies off too but he's incredibly far more faster than Mariela, he or she zooms past buildings leaving the sonic boom shatter the glass, or what was left of them. Wind whips up from behind me, I know there's a tornado building up behind me. I've seen this before, my dreams… this was the future I've been envisioning since I gained my powers. Before I could move, I was already somewhere else.

It looked like a large clearing, there were unfamiliar faces around me. We sat quietly in a tight circle, some were chatting, laughing; other sat in silence, like they were valuing this moment of peace. There was a woman whose arms were wrapped around mine, at first I didn't know who she was until she turned her head towards me and I was _almost _surprised it was Emily. She looked old, stress has taken out the smooth white complexion, adding wrinkles beneath and from her eyes and on her cheeks. But nonetheless, she's still strikingly beautiful, the grey lines on her red hair seems to shine silver. I wanted to touch her face, pull her close and kiss her but before I could move, I was already moving, my entire body felt stuck as images fly through me like strips of film. All around me were my futures—_our _futures. It was pouring from one single point in the horizon in front of me and behind me, they were being thrown into the ever expanse of what planes I was in. I marveled at the sight and had forgotten all about myself—myself from the future that is— standing in front of me, a few yards away.

When our eyes met, it was somewhat bittersweet moment. I had a feeling of happiness that I got to live that long, to be with Emily and to have tried to fight against the new Conduits, but there was also this creeping fear that we didn't won… because if we had, Seymour must've seen it by now, right?

"You have come" my voice—my future self's voice—was deeper, huskier. "Seymour said you would" I simply nod to his words, although I think it wasn't a question but more of a proclamation.

"I was told by the present time Seymour that this was the fastest way—

"Fastest way to get a firm and true hold on your powers" he interrupts. He folds his muscular arms in front of his chest and nods. The thin lines of white hair on the side of my future-self glinted against the light. "But I'm not giving it to you"

"What?"

"You think if you suddenly had powers, you think you'd have defeated _them _by now? No" his mouth turned into a firm line. Was I going to argue with myself?


	13. Chapter 13 - Future Sight

"No" I said. "It's not that. I want…" what _did _I want? On the top of that list was to go home, to my mom and dad, to introduce them my girl, Emily, to have a nice relaxing life. Not this bullshit.

My future-self watched as I looked around, witnessing every future events I will see. They go blazing through my eyes as every scene played like a film, jumping here and there, cuts made and new plotlines implemented. Was this what Seymour sees? I feel a shiver down my spine as I finally understand the gravity of his powers, if he willed it to, he could change all of these by a single action in the world. He had the power to stop any of this from happening… or from happening.

"Please" I finally say. I had notice I had walked closer to him. "I… I need this power to protect…" Emily? My family? The world? "…Everyone"

"_Do _you really need this?!" I hear the anger, frustration in his voice. Everything goes black. One moment I was in a space where the future was seeable then the next, I was in a vast wasteland. Chicago, or rather, what was left of it. No, this is just some _alternate _future, I'm not going to let this happen.

"You know!" I scream out turning in circles trying to find my future-self. "I won't be a _big _failure like you! This—" I point out to the ruins. "This is _your _future. Not min—

His fist connects with my jaw and I almost sent flying. I sprawl on the floor for a few seconds before finally get up on my feet but I'm suddenly brought back to the ground by a powerful pick from behind my knees. He's—I'm fast. He stands in front of me, his face with a smile. "This is _our _future if you don't man up"

"What—what the fuck are you talking about _manning up? _You're the one who doesn't want to give me power" I try to stand up but he kicks me in the ribs, the wind gets knocked out of me. I cough uncontrollably.

"Power wasn't the thing that went wrong with you! You trusted him!" I don't know who he's talking about the anger in his voice means I've done something in the past that I would really regret. I try to quell my coughing.

"Who?"

"Lehm! Who do you think else? You grew too close to him in the past and then… then..." he kicks me again, this time it was less painful and powerful than the first one. I'm able to stand up on my feet. His back was to me, his hands clenched into fists. "You thought maybe something could happen with him… but he's… he's a lost cause in the end" he turns to face me. "This, this future is _our _future if you don't stop him, this is what becomes of our world if you let Unknown call himself Emperor"

My body goes frigid for a moment. Why did everything, even though it all looked so complicated, comes back to him? What happens in the future, with the Conduits, and what about Emily? "Then why don't you trust me in changing this, from stopping this future from happening?!"

He doesn't answer. He was looking at the ruins of the city. I found myself being filled with renewed strength and I was able to stand up. My knees buckled for a moment but I was able to lean against a pile of rubble I soon notice had bones and skulls sticking out from underneath the earth. I push myself away from it and almost collide with my future-self. He steadies me by the shoulder. "I come to warn you, Lee, the future is grim no matter who wins" I feel a sudden burning sensation where his arms were holding me. I try to break free but the pain was already escalating through my entire body and soon I was writhing on the ground, my vision blurring, I could see him then white, then him again. It was like that until the pain was too much and I blacked out… I thought I blacked out.

I was back in the white expanse. Seymour was with me this time. The present-time Seymour was looking at one of the strips of what I believed, at the time, was the current future. "So, you've talked with yourself from the future, what did he say?"

"He said that the future was grim no matter who won" I turn in a circle, there weren't any other strip aside from the one Seymour was looking at. "What did he mean by that?"

Seymour sighed, a darker shade covered his face. "I must tell you the rest of what I saw in this future"

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Not much news about Augustine or Nemesis. I've been sitting my ass off at the local bar for two hours trying to get a whiff of any rumors or even confirmed news about the D.U.P's involvement in Chicago, because I know what I felt that night, I felt Nemesis homing in on the city. "Another" I say as the bartender came back to my direction. I've have three shots of pure tequila now and I'm starting to get a little desperate that I'll pass out first before I get any news. Why was I even drinking? I don't drink.

"Maybe you should lay off on the drink there, bud" he advices but slides me another shot glass. Maybe you should learn to shut your fucking mouth when it's none of your business. I was drinking… to forget Blair. To forget this empty feeling I get every time I think of her, this feeling of regret and anger boiling inside me just might cause another disaster, that's why I'm drinking. And I've been in this bar for two hours… because of what now? Oh yeah, the fucking news. D.U.P apprehends another Bioterrorist, blah blah blah, something about Chicago, blah blah blah, nothing about Nemesis.

I gulp the tequila, pay my bills and head off into the rest of the town, half-sober and half-drunk. I should've probably left this dump earlier this morning when I met that kid in the motel. I shake my head and continue my way to whatever place I get myself into as James Jensen.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"The future you see, the only future set in our paths right now, is a future where three things will occur no matter what happens" Seymour's voice boomed in the endless expanse of the white all around us. "The first is the war that will last two days, the second was the rise of Emperor and the third was the death of the only one who could stop him" Seymour finally let go of the strip and it started to flow again towards the horizon in front of them.

"Who's the one who can defeat Emperor, then?" a sudden thought entered my mind. "Is it going to be me?"

He shook his head. "No" he looked into my eyes and it wall I needed to know that what he was about to say would shake my world apart. "It's Emily"

At that moment, my world stopped. I wanted to punch Seymour in the face, I wanted to run away and go back to Emily and then run away with her as far we could. Maybe if we didn't existed in the battle, maybe this future wouldn't have to happen.

**Author here: Sorry for the short chapter. I've been busy with my studies that I sometimes forget to update "Temporal". But I assure you, readers, that I'm almost done with the shitty exams and then it'll be smooth sailing for the story. I also get mild writer's block from time to time, I guess it's time for me to ask what do you think should happen next?**


	14. Chapter 14 - Chinese Monasteries

That burning sensation I experienced earlier from my future-self wasn't the only thing I got, a small complex tattoo had appeared on my right wrist, it looked like interlocking and weaved black lines forming into what looked like wings. I stare at the tattoo as the rift opens up behind me. "I'm sorry, Lee" says Seymour. He pats me on the shoulder and I turn to him. I don't know what to say or if I should say anything at all. I'm comfortable for the silence that wrapped us right now. I shrug and I step into the rift.

The town of Valve was a small town a few miles south of Chicago. We were able to find a good place to get settled in Valve and I was able to get used to the sudden change of scenery. I mean, I was just in Clifton for at least a week. You won't miss a town that didn't have too many memories to give. I walked up back the steps of the apartment complex. Emily was sitting near the top of the stair, her eyes widened when she saw me, a smile cresses her mouth, she stands up and jogs towards me. I meet her halfway and I enclose her in a hug. I hugged her tightly as I can, I don't have the strength to let go. She pulls away and she puts a kiss on my cheek. "Why the sad face" she asks.

"I… Uh" I don't know what to say. But I know deep inside me that I need to tell her what Seymour told me. "We need to talk" I say and her face grows dark.

"Lee" she starts but I stop her.

"No, let's just get inside and then we—

"Lee" she says again, the fear and surprise present in her tone. "Behind you"

I slowly turn. There on the foot of the stairs was someone I never knew I would see again, or rather I knew I would see again but didn't want to… yet. Unknown, his hoodie tucked behind his head, the blonde hair was new but those eyes… those piercing purple eyes stared at us with utmost surprise and glee. I feel Emily slowly back away as Unknown—Lehm—slowly stretch out his hands, his smile still on his face. "Found you" he said. This guy is nuts, just like what my future-self said. He took one step and I open a rift under him, for a moment I thought it worked but he appeared a few steps in front of me. "Not going to work now" he says. I throw a punch which I might have put too much force because even I am taken forward by my punch. I lose my balance and I fall face first, I feel a hand grab me by the arm and I'm yanked up. Lehm stands firm beside me, he holds me by the forearm and he hoists me up. "Be careful, don't throw blind punches like that" he said laughing. On instinct, I opened a rift under us and teleported us miles high in the air. I'm suddenly falling but it doesn't last long because he holds by the arm. "Would you just— We're back down on the ground. "…listen?" I was already aiming for a punch when we landed and it hits him square in the jaw, he stumbles a few steps but he regains his footing. "That's it!"

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

First, that hurt. A lot. Second, I want to talk not fight but if that's what he wants then that's what I'll give him. I crack open the earth under him and his foot slides in. He stumbles and I hit him back in the face. His head jolts backward from the impact but he disappears before he falls unto the ground. He reappears behind me but I'm already moving, I swing my left elbow backwards and hit his square on left temple. He says something before swiping his right leg at me, we both fall down, with me toppling on top of him. He uses his arm to hook me by the neck. "You fuck" he says as he tries to choke me. I phase through him and the earth. I distance myself from him before resurfacing. He wildly looks from left to right, something wasn't quite right here, he wasn't this reckless back in Seattle. I make myself visible and his eyes quickly fall on me. He charges, I can feel the sudden tension in the space around me. He's created a barrier but it's—

It wasn't a barrier. It was a rift, his left fist came out of nowhere and it hits me right in the nose. I feel a trickle of blood coming out but my hyper healing was already kicking— another rift. This time it was a foot that swiped my feet causing me to fall on the ground. He was on top of me before I knew it. I activate my phasing again but something's stopping me from seeping into the asphalt of the road. Condensed—Super condensed—space was being created under me. Since when did he suddenly grew stronger?

"You motherfucker!" he shouted as he sends down his right fist on my face, I phase through it. I can't dive down but I can still rise up. I start to levitate myself when my wrists and ankles suddenly feel like they were filled with lead. I'm bounded under him. I can only keep phasing through his punches.

"You need to listen to me" I say. But he's breathing heavy through his nostrils. His eyes were bloodshot red with anger. "You're… something's wrong with you!" I say but he doesn't seem to listen. A shimmer on his right wrist. A glowing tattoo? No, this wasn't a normal tattoo. I force my hands against the space around it. Condensed molecules won't let smaller ones—my phased-self is made off—pass but telekinesis can. I grab his right wrist by my mind and flung him against a wooden fence. The heavy feeling binding me to the road disappears. I stand up quickly and fly straight up at supersonic speed. I look down to see Valve a small dot of red, brown and other colored roofs surrounded by green lush forest. I hear something scuffle behind me, another rift tears open from the sky and he falls out of it, he grabs me by the left ankle and yanks me downward. He's put heavy space around him to sink us down. I have nothing else to use expect this… if I don't do this now, we'll both get smacked to the Earth, hard. I'll survive through my hyper healing but I have a feeling he won't.

I grab his arms and pull him up—or rather pull myself down—to face me. He tries to squirm as my hands tightly wrapped on his shoulders. He yells as I feel a sudden heaviness cover us. I let out a breath, it's now or never. I blink twice and we disappear from existence.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

The last thing I remember was punching Lehm but I missed and I was about to fall when he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me up. When I open my eyes I was in complete darkness. I turned my head from left to right, nothing. Just a large black expanse of void.

"You're awake" I hear his voice but I don't see him. I try to stand up but there's no gravity here, I float in spins and in circles trying to steady myself upward… or what I think is upward. It's a black expanse of nothing and there's literally nothing, even gravity doesn't occur here.

"Where am I?!" I shout through the darkness.

"Nowhere" he says. "I've taken your body nowhere"

Cryptic. As always. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I try to lower my voice seeing as there's no need to shout because I have this strange feeling that even if I whispered my words, he'd still hear me.

"I need to talk to you, nothing more" he says. "I need your help"

"Ha, as if!" I shout back. I hear him sigh and the slowly, then rapidly, the darkness was pulled into a center point in the distance, or in front of me… I don't know really. I just know that I'm in a dark void. Light seems to enter and I'm back, laying on the side of the road. Emily was on her knees looking down at me. She let me used her thighs as a pillow. Lehm stood in front of us, his back against me.

"And here I thought you'd be somewhat useful" I hear the criticism in his voice.

"What do you want from us?" Emily's voice came full of anger and spite.

"You, nothing" he says turning to us. "Him, a lot" he points a finger at me. He snaps a finger and we're instantly somewhere else. I suddenly recognize that it was the Great Wall of China. I look around suddenly feeling a little seasick from the teleportation. It came and went but the after-effects were still reeling. I feel Emily's grip tighten on my hand. I look to her, she's fearful and hesitant to do anything without me saying so. I just nod and look back up to Lehm. He ushers us to walk forward. "Have a walk with me, the two of you"

Emily looks at me for a second. She doesn't want anything to do with Lehm, I can see it in her eyes. She nods anyhow and gives me a slight push. We start to follow him. He places one foot on the side of the wall. I was confused for a second to what he was doing until he raised his other foot and placed it on the wall. He was walking sideways up to the top of the wall. I just hope that the Asian Branch of the D.U.P isn't around to see this. He ushers us to follow. "Uh, if you forgot, you're the only one with_ limitless_ powers" I say. He turns to us, it makes my stomach turn in knots just to see him standing on the wall a few feet above the ground.

"Nonsense. Take my hand" he says.

We hesitate to do anything he says. "Yeah, right"

"Look" he says putting his hands on his waist. "You can look at this as a trust exercise, I won't let you fall since I am in need of your help. Besides, you have more worth when you're mobile than in a wheelchair"

I look at Emily. She shrugs and slowly approaches the wall. She reaches out her hand and he takes it. "Slowly" he says as she plants down a foot on the wall. I can see she's nervous and my mind reels back to what Seymour said. Emily was going to be killed by the same person holding her hand right now. I follow fast and create a rift on the wall. I walk up to it and reappear on the top. I don't trust Lehm but I at least want to hear what he has to say. I hear a few groans and squeals, I rush to the side and look down, Emily's trying her best to balance out as she walks up te side of the wall with Lehm behind her. "Be careful. You don't want to lose your footing, Anti-Gravity's a tricky thing" he says.

She reaches the rim of the side and I reach out a hand to take hers. "Thanks" she says as I pull her into the top. Lehm comes next with no help, he easily maneuvers his gravity downward again.

"You must've heard about the news of Chicago?"

"So it _was _you!" my hand grabbed him by the hem of his shirt, he lets me pull him up the ground. He doesn't seem to fight back instead his eyes fall on the ground, he's… distraught? He nods slowly and I feel the anger rush out of me. I let him down and he smooth's out his shirt.

"I didn't mean to do it" his voice was filled with remorse. I keep thinking this was an act to fool us, but the as he continues, I have a harder time in believing my own suspicion. "They didn't listen. Blair needed help and when they attacked us, my powers activated giving me this ability to call out disasters" he looks down to his hands, they were clutched tight, the blood draining from the knuckles. "I couldn't save her…" he trailed off.

We walked in silence for a few minutes. People began to appear in the distance, a few men in uniform approached us. They speak in Chinese and I don't understand a thing but Lehm, he looked as if he was getting the jist of what they were telling us. Probably that we were in the prohibited zone of the wall. Before I could react, Lehm was already moving.

He touched one of the men and he froze in place. The other, taken by surprise, stumbles backward and drops on his ass. Lehm, one had a blaze, says something in Chinese and the man runs off. "They won't be bothering us for now" he says. The flame in his hand dies out. I approach the other guy, frozen in place.

"What about him?"

"He's having a pleasurable experience in his mindscape, let him be" he says as he walks toward the crowd of tourists. We follow close, I don't have the slightest clue why he brought us here in China or what he wants but if there's something I can get from him about the future Seymour told me, this is the perfect opportunity to do so, before I kill the son of a bitch. We blend into the crowd and no one seems to notice the three new arrivals in the group.

"I'm here to contact someone I know, I brought you two along for the talk we'll have" he says as we follow the group and purposely lag behind them a few steps. I have to wonder why did he did those things to the two guards that went over to us earlier. Emily's been too quiet and I look to see her taking in the sight. At least one of us is having a good time. She turns to me and gives me a wiry smile before sweeping a few strands of hair behind her ear. She's nervous but doesn't want to show it. I give her a reassuring nod. If we see the first sign of conflict, we get the hell out of here. "Be on the lookout for a young Chinese woman with black hair. She has a strip of hair colored in purple, also" he says as the group stops. We break off from the group and go by ourselves. The guards don't seem to mind us without a tourist guide.

"I think I see her" says Emily pointing to someone in the other direction. Lehm turns and a smile creeps up on his face. I'm surprised to find he has this_ normal _smile. It almost looks innocent, except for the fact that he had killed hundreds of people in Chicago. The girl spots us and waves before running towards us. Lehm, who stood waiting for her to come closer, was surprised—genuinely surprised—when she disappeared and reappeared in front of him in the blink of an eye and wrapped him into her arms. She says something in Chinese and Lehm nods before slowly wrapping his arms around her. He says something in Chinese before she lets him go. She turns to us, extends a hand that Emily hesitantly shook.

"Nice… to meet you" she says in a heavily accent English. "I'm Xing Ling"

"Nice to meet you too" Emily says but I doubt she means it. "Emily"

"Xing is a teleporter Conduit" says Lehm as he turned to us. "That's the guy I was telling you about" he says before saying something in Chinese. Xing looks surprised before looking at me with wide eyes. She says things in her language very rapidly before stopping herself.

"Sorry" she says. "I… forget you… don't speak… Chinese" she tries to pronounce the words well but was off by a mile at the words _forget _and _speak._ I shake her hand. Lehm puts a hand on her shoulder and she turns to him, he whispers something in Chinese and I suddenly feel a trickle of panic. She nods vehemently before focusing on us, she grabs us by the wrists, I was going to yank my hand from her grip but we were already in darkness before I knew it.

- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Xing Ling teleports us to her new found hideout somewhere in China. I've called her a night before to meet me at the wall but plans change and it turns out, Lee and his girl, had enough guts to trust me. I mean, who would? I've done shit for anyone to kill me the moment they see me in the streets. Xing teleports us into a large manor set in the mountains, it looks like a monastery really. Large orange dome roofs above us and hexagon tiled bricks beneath us, a few feet away where we land was a cliff overlooking a ravine etched in between two mountains. The wind sweeps gently across us as stood there for a moment.

"Where are we?" I turn to face Lee, he's a little pale from the experience which I find surprising since he can teleport much like Xing and I can, only in a different manner than we could. Emily, his girl, took the trip a little better, she's shook up but not as physically-showing as Lee was.

"I'll spare you the details" I say. Xing walks in front of us. I usher them to follow her into the monastery. "We are at war. And time is of the essence"


End file.
